After a wicked choke, he blurted, "Who in salvation is that/" The sergeant, just coming aboard, glared at him as if he and the ambassador were complete idiots. 'øI'hat's our provost of the works. He saved half the planet from the Constrictor. He developed a way to predict the waves. He sponsored engineer- ing schools and guided architectural renovations all over the planet. Don't you even know who you came to see? We owe him our lives." The idling engines of the scout roared in his ears as Stiles stood riveted to the carpet. His voice gravelly, he managed, "I owe him a couple things too.... " Spock surveyed the picture briefly, seeing that something more than a portrait of a guy beside a tiger oak desk was going on here. "Mr. Stiles? Do you have something to say?" Confused, demolished, Stiles blinked at him, at the sergeant and finally again at the picture.

 

 

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. I know how we can get in. Tell the 'Provost'... that Eric Stiles is back."

 

 

Chapter Twenty-one

 

 

"STILES. EPdC STILES. You didn't die. They cured you some- how." "Orsova. Somehow, it figures." In one withering instant, all of Eric Stiles's fears and viscer- al reactions bonded into a single living form. There, behind an enormous orange-and-black desk carved out of that wood that reminded Stiles of tiger oak, except even stronger, back- dropped by polished paneling and a dozen plaques and awards, there sat the drunken mess that had represented misery to him for four years.

 

 

Orsova was less slovenly than before, indeed had lost weight, though he still carried the wide shoulders and stocky build that came naturally to so many native Pojjana. His black hair was now shot with gold their idea of getting older--and he no longer wore the uniform of the prison hierarchy but the tweedy suit of a Pojjana planetary official. Stiles had only seen that uniform twice before in person. A long time ago.

 

 

Orsova sat behind his huge desk, which had hardly any work upon it, and scoured Stiles with the look of a man who was being shown both the past and the future in one picture.

 

 

How could events turn this way? How could a devious slob like that become somebody with a title?

 

 

"God in a box," Stiles chafed, "what am I seeingT' His words barely scratched from his throat. As he stood star- ing, he thought perhaps that only Ambassador Spock, standing with some effort at his side, had heard him at all.

 

 

He felt Spock's peripheral glance. But the ambassador never said a thing to him about his reaction to the person they were both standing before. This was crazy. This was a dream.

 

 

Spock stepped forward, favoring his bloody leg, to draw the provost's attention away from Stiles and onto himself.

 

 

"Provost, I am Ambassador Spock of the United Federation of Planets. Fifteen years ago I was the emissary to your govern- ment. We are here to negotiate the greening of Red Sector. Cir- cumstances have caused the Romulans to need Federation assistance. On an Interstellar Temporary Pass, we have come here to make an offer. The sector can be reopened, allowing for trade, assistance, technological exchange, and limited diplomat- ic relations without requiting membership. We can help the Poj- jana in many ways--agricultural efficiency, technological--" "We don't want help." Orsova stood up behind his big desk, and there was some- thing prophetic and distant about him. The desk sprawled like an emblem--tiger oak. That was something Zevon had talked about a long time ago. The memory sparked to life.

 

 

"What do you want?" Orsova asked.

 

 

"We wish to negotiate for custody of the Romulan prisoner named Zevon." Please let him still be alive, please let him still be alive, please-- Orsova said nothing about Zevon, clearly determined not to give anything away. Instead, he simply asked, "Why do you want one of our prisoners?" "Damn you," Stiles grumbled.

 

 

Spock looked at him.

 

 

In frustration and contempt Stiles wagged a hand at Orsova.

 

 

"what am I--chopped cabbage? He damned well knows Zevon's not just 'one of their prisoners' to me! Is he alive or not, you bastard?"

 

 

At Stiles' single step forward, two of the Four guards launched forward from the sides of the office, blocking his way to Orsova. The guard closest to him drove the butt of his rifle into Stiles' stomach, and he was driven down.

 

 

Spock grasped the guard's arm, avoiding the weapon, and pushed him back in such a way that somehow the movement wasn't threatening. As Stiles gasped at the ambassador's feet, battling crying lungs and a bruised rib, Spock spoke again to Orsova.

 

 

"If the Pojjana strike a deal with the Federation, the Bal Quonott and all others in the sector will be pressured to deal with you on favorable terms. That would give the Pojjana sub- stance beyond just your planet. Indeed, you would be a power to be reckoned with in the entire sector. Certainly that offers some value." Orsova's round bronze face tilted a little like a ball rolling.

 

 

Maybe he was trying to think. Looked like it hurt.

 

 

Stiles's legs were watery as he waited. He had to force him- self to stand still, not flinch or shift around, to bury the cloying nervousness, cloak the haunt of old terrors.

 

 

"You'll be held," Orsova ultimately decided, "as part of the foreign ship that invaded our planetary space. You'll be held as hostages until the rest of your ship up there surrenders. The ship is mine now, property of the Pojjana people. The crew will be turned over to your government after a healthy fine is paid for destruction of property, violating our space... and any other things I think of." This was Orsova's playing ground. That showed clearly, as he stood up behind his big fancy desk, made of the wood Zevon had long ago discovered did not compress during Con- strictors. He came around the bright orange piece of furniture, touching it only lightly along the edge. At the comer of the desk he paused, only steps from Stiles. His eyes burned into Stiles' eyes.

 

 

"Except you," he said. "I'll keep you for the memories." Cued by some secret signal or habit, two of the four armed guards in the room came forward as Orsova moved out from his desk and paused again at Stiles' side. The guards were close enough to threaten against any attempts to attack the provost, so Stiles was careful to remain perfectly still. Being frozen into place by past horrors helped some.

 

 

Orsova's eyes drew tight. "It was an insult to me when they took you away. I promised the planet I would get you back. I kept your cell waiting. Didn't even clean it. Part of the prom- ise." With eyes flat and still as a doll's, Orsova motioned to the guards.

 

 

"Take them away."

 

 

"Orsova." "You brought me back already? Why? I stopped the Federa- tion people. Their ship ran away." "Their ship did not leave the solar system. I have been mon- itoring. They're hiding somewhere. I have discovered why they came here." At these words from the Voice, Orsova paused and frowned.

 

 

He had been sure the Federation ship had run away. He had the Federation's Vulcan ambassador and Eric Stiles where no one would find them, and the Federation ship had run off. But this person, this ghost who spoke to him in unexplained terms, with impossible knowledge, said otherwise.

 

 

"1 have changed my plans. I must have these people alive.

 

 

The doctors, and Zevon." "And Stiles?" "Do what you wish with him." "Why do you want doctors? why don't you just kill them?

 

 

We've killed plenty of others--" "The have found a way to do the impossible, cure the incur- able. I must know how. You must capture them and bring them to me." Trying to make sense of a puzzle when he had only half the pieces, Orsova paced the small chamber of the humming craft as the planet of his birth rotated outside one of the little holes.

 

 

"1 have something here," the Voice began again, "that will make the Pojjana supreme in Red Sector Even the Bal Quonott will shrink before you." Suspicious of such a brash statement, Orsova narrowed his eyes. "what will make spaceships bow before our planes?" "You will have more than planes if you do as 1 tell you. Look in the space chest." Space chest... this brass case? It had a lock, but the lid opened for him anyway. He looked inside. There was only one thing in there. "A bottle?" "A medical vial." "Poison?" "Something similar" Orsova straightened sharply. "Is this biolo~cal war? You want me to put a plague on my own people? I won't!" "No." "I have no one else to poison." "You have Zevon." At this, Orsova paused and grimaced. "Why should I poison Zevon? who are you to want it?" "You'll never know me. All these years, and I am still a stranger. You were a jail guard. You became assistant warden, but you would never have grown beyond that but for the day I spoke to you and told you to believe that Zevon could predict the Constrictor. Now, Zevon's usefulness is coming to an end here. Give this to Zevon before he is enticed away, and the galaxy moves forward by a leap." "Away?" orsova reacted. "Why should he go away? He hates his own people. We're his people now! He says it every day." "He is royal family. They need him. He may go." "He'll never leave. No one could get him to leave now" "The Federation and the Romulans both have reasons to make him want to go. If he leaves, you lose your power and 1 lose my chance to have what I want. The vial will end the Romulan threat and make the Pojjana strongest, because it will stop Zevon from leaving." "Because he'll be dead? What... what do... if I kill Zevon for you, what comes to me?" "This will force the collapse of the Romulan Empire. When it falls, you will get Romulan ships." "Warwings? You'll give me those?" "And birds-of-prey, and at least one full-sized converted heavy cruiser... for the sector governor, so he will become accustomed to fiying in space." "Sector governor..." He discovered a series of small cracks--or were they open- ings? seams?---in the panels.

 

 

"You will get a Romulan fleet, enough ships to control the Bal Quonott and make the Pojjana the power in this sector.

 

 

Rather than cowering before the Federation, the Romulans, or any other aliens, you will be the winner." "Winner..." "Stop... trying... to see me.t" The cabin vibrated with the voice's sudden rage. Whoever this ghostly person was, he would not be discovered.

 

 

Orsova felt his curiosity wane and let it go. Some things, he didn't have to know. "Zevon's alien," he protested. "How do you know this will kill him? Are you an alien too? Are you a human?" "No." "Are you Romulan, Voice? Is that who you are all these years?" "No." "Are you---" "Zevon will be contaminated. Then the Federation won't have any reason to stay in Red Sector, and Zevon will have no reason to leave. Either way, I will honor my agreement with you." Standing in the middle of the cabin, Orsova gazed at the reflection of himself. An older man, no longer as fat as the prison guard had been, a glowing copper complexion on his cheekbones and streaks of dignified gold in his black hair. This was the leader of a planet, perhaps the leader of a whole sector of space? Dominion over the Bal Quonott, who had lorded their spacefaring capability over the Pojjana since before he was born?

 

 

Liking what he saw, he squared Iris shoulders and imagined a fur cape. The voice remained silent until he decided to ask a question.

 

 

"Every time you speak," he attempted, plumbing for more information, "I still have no reason to believe what you say."

 

 

"Believe because you can be in charge of this whole sector instead of just one weak and troubled planet, and I will be in charge of you. You will have more power, more comfort, more stability than ever you dreamed on the day you were happy to become a jail guard, the day you were astonished to be made warden, or the day you realized Zevon was right about predict- ing the Constrictor and that he would be silent for you. This is easy for me because you have already seized power here. With Zevon dead or ill, you will be my wealthy, powerful little pup- pet. Number two is still very high. Do this, and you will be sec- tor governor when the Romulan Empire falls. Don't, and I will kill you now and find someone else~ I don't care. Is this diffi- cult?" "No." "Take the vial. You no longer need Zevon. Killing him is bet- ter. I will be happier. lf you cannot kill him, infect him." The small undecorated bottle was slightly warm, as if it had been kept heated. He noted the temperature and planned to keep it insulated. If he was going to do this thing, he would do it right.

 

 

"Needle?" "It must go in the body. Skin contact is not enough. Only Zevon's DNA will absorb the virus. Get it into him any way you can. Report to me on this frequency when you have suc- ceeded. The Romulan family dies, you become sector governor and get more than your dreams. You're a small and greedy man, Orsova. But take no insult... I need small and greedy men." Orsova tucked the vial deep into his jacket, against the warm skin of his chest, and looked up to the faceless persona that promised him glory.

 

 

"Small and greedy governors;' he corrected.

 

 

"Something weird's going on. Why wouldn't they want help? The Constrictor still comes---~at's obvious from the architecture. And that pig's no provost or magistrate. I don't know how he got that kind of power, but he's nothing but a glorified jail guard. You saw how he acted! Nobody runs a planet honesty and forthrightly and then turns down help."

 

 

"He did seem somewhat cross-purposed." "He's got some kind of racket going on here. How else in hell could a brutal superficial lout like Orsova end up in con- trol of a whole planet?" "How could a corporal become Fiihrer?" Stiles felt his face pinch. "Who?... oh. How's your leg?

 

 

It's still bleeding?" "Yes, it seems to be." The ambassador turned his leg for a better look at the wound. "You were right. I should have left the projectile embedded." "Let me wrap it up." Forcing himself to put Orsova aside in his mind, at least long enough to open the first-aid kit they'd been given, Stiles knelt beside the cot where Speck was sitting. The smell in here was so familiar--that combination of dust and moisture that never quite goes away.

 

 

Speck pressed his hands back on the cot, tightened up visi- bly, and endured the stinging pain as Stiles cut the trouserleg away from the wound. The puncture bad clotted some, though blood and tissue still leaked from it. Stiles tried to remember how big the projectile had been. Details failed him. All he could do was apply antiseptic, then pressure, both of which caused Speck to stiffen noticeably. Typically Vulcan, Speck was suppressing both the pain and any appearance of it. Stiles wondered if he could do that well if somebody put an arrow through part of him.

 

 

"At least they gave us a medical kit," he muttered as he gauzed the leg.

 

 

"They may have an ulterior motive," Speck suggested.

 

 

"You mean they want us to escape?" "Possibly. What do you think?" Confronted with having to cough up an answer, Stiles felt as if he were back in grade school and hadn't done his reading assignment.

 

 

"If anything made sense, I'd have something to think. Orso- va as a planetary leader, no sign of Zevon... all sorts of tech- nology and architecture that wasn't here ten years ago... that composite beam reaching out of the atmosphere and grabbing a ship as big and powerful as a CST--even Starfleet can't mix those properties that way. How could the Pojjana do that in just ten years?" "From what you tell me," Speck contemplated, "Zevon knew what every civilization needs to make its quantum leap.

 

 

Energy. Yet, to build and use high energy, he would need to influence the use of resources and manpower on the planet. If somehow he obtained influence, gained trust... yet how does an alien, particularly a Romulan, come to gain trust in a cul- ture as xenophobic as this?" "He couldn't. Something else must've happened. Orsova would never let us get past him to talk to anybody else... he kept everything to..." Everything he'd seen, the inconsistencies and irritating facts, stewed under his skin. He thought of those last few hours with Zevon, with Orsova, the last beating that had been auc- tioned to an alien-hating Pojjana. Bruises nearly rose on his skin as if by habit, summoned by the nearness of those old miseries. Suddenly, as if being tapped on the shoulder, he remembered what he had said to Orsova during that last beat- ing.

 

 

"That's it! Orsova as planetary leader makes no sense at all unless it finally sank through that iron skull that Zevon really could predict the Constrictor! I told him myself! I tried to con- vince him! If after I left he decided to check it out and Zevon convinced him, orsova could're taken that message to the government, succeeded in warning the planet, saved a bunch of people and parlayed that into power "Grasping his head to keep it from blowing off, Stiles raved, "That's got to be itl Orsova's getting credit for Zevon's work!" Speck stretched his leg, thinking. "Why would Zevon agree to such an arrangement?" "Oh, he'd agree in a flat minute," Stiles tossed. The familiar- ity rushed back. "Zevon didn't want power. He was never afraid for his own life. He wanted to redeem himself in his own eyes by saving more people than he killed when his team's experiments started the Constrictor" "A composite graviton-traction beam with polarity that high, as well as the phaser-resistant envelope the CST encountered, can only be generated with very delicately balanced quantum charge generation. They plainly have warp energy, but it seems to be planet-bound." "I know why" Stiles said. "Zevon wasn't interested in space. He'd been there. If he'd had influence and resources, he would've turned all the energy he could control to saving the planet from the Constrictor and other outside threats. Looks to me like the Pojjana turned out to be pretty sharp, at least sharp enough to follow instructions, learn physics and engi- neering... even Zevon couldn't do this by himself. They still don't have massive warships or anything, but in spite of that we were in for a real surpfise when we got here." "If Zevon is the real genius behind the planet's sudden advancement," Spock continued, "and I agree that is likely, then Orsova is in constant danger of his secret's being found out." Stiles looked up. "He sure wouldn't want you and me blab- bing it around, would he?" "No. Nor would he want Zevon taken away. No deal or favor from the Federation could be as beneficial to him as hay- hag Zevon here, with a pact to remain behind the scenes." Coming to his feet, Stiles paced a few steps. "If all this is fight, then if Zevon leaves or dies, the jig is up. Orsova couldn't keep up the illusion of being brilliant all by himself." "Sounds like a threatening symbiotic relationship," the ambassador surmised. "Zevon has managed to bridge the Poj- jana through this period of Constrictors which otherwise would have killed vast numbers of them. Instead, they thrive despite the Constrictor." "They thrive. Orsova thrives. Zevon's here somewhere, alive, working for Orsova. And we're here, locked in a stone crate." His words fell to the floor. With nothing more to do for the ambassador's leg, Stiles sat on the other cot against the other wall, and descended into captivity as naturally as into a warm tub. Its arms folded around him. They'd been waiting.

 

 

The walls around them, stone and mortar, lichen and leak- age, uttered their opinion. All the old perceptions came rushing back. Someone was using an autovac on a floor one story up.

 

 

Water ran through the pipes. Other prisoners, probably, taking showers in the next wing. A flicker of the lights. Circuits need- ed adjustment.

 

 

He stared at the opposite wall.

 

 

"Somehow I knew," he murmured. "I knew I'd end up back here. It's been like one of those nightmares that won't quit coming back. Look at me... I can't breathe right, there's no blood in my hands... I used to get like this before academy exams. Or before meeting you." Across the cell, the ambassador observed him as if he were watching bread dough rise, which annoyed Stiles right to the hairs on the back of his neck. Kicking at a loose stone that had been loose ten years ago too, Stiles vented, "Did it ever happen to you that you didn't know what to do next?" Spook did not venture an answer to that. Instead of the ambassador's voice, Stiles heard a thousand voices from the past speaking to him, echoing against the hard-learned lessons of a young officer, the struggles of living with crewmates, and finally learning to live with himself. He seldom looked in this kind of mirror any more. He'd never liked the reflection when he had.

 

 

Today, though, he didn't look away.

 

 

"Funny;' he began aloud, "when we were about to die because something grabbed the ship and we had thirteen min- utes to live, I wasn't afraid. Standing up there looking at Orso- va over the top of that big desk... I about crapped my pants." "I'm glad you restrained yourself," Spock conunented lightly.

 

 

"Ship disasters don't scare me" Stiles said, keeping on his track. "Disastrous people scare me." It seemed there was somefiring just around the corner, just beyond his grasp, a whisper in the fog.

 

 

After a few seconds, Stiles found himself asking, "Did peo- ple scare... him?" The last word, revered somehow all by itself, came out as a pathetic sigh, a comparison that shouldn't be made if any progress was ever to be accomplished. Instantly Stiles regret- ted that he'd asked.

 

 

Spock's answer took some time coming. "Helplessness scared him."

 

 

For the first time, Stiles felt a steely connection forged in the cool cell. "Did he ever think of himself the way I think of myself?. Like I don't belong where I am?" Veiled contentment settled over Mr. Spock as the past opened briefly before him for viewing and he enjoyed what he saw. His voice was low, even soft, yet carried a scolding tone.

 

 

"'He'... was an exceptional man. He was also my friend.

 

 

As such, we had our disagreements. We saw each other's ugli- er moments. The mission logs fail to show those aspects." Stiles looked up. "Are you saying the logs are inaccurate?" "Not at all. We simply left things out." "Like what?" Spock paused to think a moment. "The logs, the legends, the tall tales, the song and story--these are spirit-charging powers for us ~1. But legend is selective and usually written by the winners. The legends of the first Enterprise... they reflect the heroic, not the human aspects, of our life together in those years... Jim Kirk, Dr. McCoy, the others, and myself. Legend is a great filter. The traits that shame us most, the ones we leave out of the stories, are often the flaws that give us texture.

 

 

Without them, we would be only pictures." Speck leaned back on an elbow, maneuvered his leg to a better position, and considered the past through scopes in his own mind.

 

 

"I have come over these many years to understand what it means to be a captain not so much in rank but in manner.

 

 

There are captains of rank, captains of ships, and captains of crews. A few men are all three. I once commanded the Enter- prise as her captain. I was capable of giving the proper orders and expecting proper behavior, but I was never captain of the crew's hopes and devotions. That is a different passion. A dif- ferent manner of man than I." At first it seemed Spock might be selling himself short, judging the past too harshly--but no. Stiles knew too well the symptoms of that, and didn't see them here. This, instead, was a kind of personal honesty, a stunning depth of self-respect.

 

 

He wanted it. He wanted to know how to do that. Spock was so graceful at understanding subtle differences that mattered, and didn't recoil from knowing his talents and limitations.

 

 

"Different how?" Stiles asked, somewhat abrasive.

 

 

Spock tipped his head in thought. "I see chess," he said.

 

 

"You see poker." Broiling with envy and impatience, Stiles rubbed his cracked hands on his trousers. He didn't understand that, exactly, but something about it lit a fire under him.

 

 

"We've got to get out of here," he announced. "It's time to go. We've got to do something." "Then you have decided to act?" Spock asked.

 

 

Bitter, humiliated, and angry about it, Stiles held back the answer that bit at his tongue. He looked up, met the ambas- sador's keen eyes. If only he could slap back the undercurrents of mockery and deserve better!

 

 

Spock gazed at him with sharp-eyed significance. "Eric, you underrate yourself and it makes you hesitate." "I hesitate because I get things wrong so much," Stiles said.

 

 

"And I don't want to get things so wrong it gets somebody killed. Or a whole lot of somebodies." "That is what everyone likes about you." Stiles looked up. "Huh?" "Your reputation among the captains of front-line ships is well known. Every service commander knows you are a Medal of Valor winner. You could have pushed, jockeyed for position, used your commendation to leap over the heads of everyone on the promotions list. Even in civilian life you might have used your hero status to become a senator or gain other power. You could easily have become one of those people with much rank and little experience, but you chose a wiser and less vainglorious way. You went back out into space for more experience, working your way up rather than forcing your way up. You may not real- ize it, but you are deeply respected and liked by the people who get all the attention. They speak of you fondly. They hope Eric Stiles is the one who comes to repair their ships." Astonished to his socks, Stiles gawked in complete stupid amazement. His men had said things like that to him, but he thought that was in-house loyalty and dusted it off with the debris of a day's work.

 

 

"Sir," he began, "there's something the history tapes don't show about you."

 

 

"What would that be?" Stiles voice was low and sincere. "You're a nice person." Though Spock's face remained passive, his eyes dropped their guard. "A supreme compliment," he said. "Thank you.

 

 

Now I suggest we vacate this ceil." "I'm ready," Stiles said. "How do we do it?" Offering a moment to absorb what they had said to each other, the ambassador raised a brow in punctuation. Then he brought his right hand to his ear and pressed the skin just behind his earlobe, and said, "Spock to Saskatoon." For two or three seconds there was nothing. Then, out of nowhere, the very faint buzz of a voice, unmistakably human, spoke up from thin air, sizzling as if on a grill.

 

 

"McCoy here. What are you clowns waiting for? We've had you located for a half hour! Why'd you wait so long to signal us? You always did have lousy Vulcan timing." Touching his ear in a different place, Spock tilted his head to clear the signal a little more. "The comm link has been charging, doctor." "Have you found that Romulan yet?" "Not yet. We have been incarcerated, but will be remedying that momentarily and effecting a search. Are you and the ship under cover?" "You bet we are. You can track us with this signal, can't you ?" "Yes. Stand by. No unnecessary signals." "Standing by. McCoy out." Astonished all over again, Stiles squawked, "How'd you do that! How could you contact--" "A micro-transponder embedded in my cochlear cavity." Spock gestured to his right ear as if to display something that couldn't possibly be seen.

 

 

"But the guards scanned us!" Stiles asked, "How'd they miss something with a broadcast range?" "The mechanism was nonactive. Dr. McCoy was under orders to activate a charge by remote after two hours had passed, with short-range microburst--" "Remote? From the ship? Wouldn't it get interference?" "The good doctor has many connections on this planet who owe him favors. I suspect he had the signal relayed through several private sources." "You 'suspect'?" "He delights in not telling me." "But can't the Pojjana key in on an outside signal like that?" "Why should they?" Spock pointed out. "Until today, there were no Federation frequency combinations being used on the planet. Why would they militate against it?" As he spoke, the ambassador firmly gripped one of the sym- bolic polished stones on his jacket. The large stone unscrewed as if it were the top of a jar and came off in Spock's hand. He turned it bottom up. In the center of what had looked perfectly well like a real stone was instead a molded chamber, and in that chamber was a black mechanical nugget which Spock plucked out and examined.

 

 

Overwhelmed, Stiles stared at the black nugget and recog- nized it, the little green "charged" light glowing against his skin.

 

 

"You've got a utility phaser!" Surveying the little palm-sized weapon with satisfaction, Spock said, "Like the comm link, it needed time to charge.

 

 

Enough time for us to beam down and clear all the security scans. If we had allowed ourselves to be captured with the link and weapon charged, the Pojjana guards would've detected the active energy. Also, I supposed the shield might neutralize them if they were precharged " "So you're saying you knew they probably wouldn't deal with us. And you knew that ahead of time." Spock eyed him cannily. "Of course, Mr. Stiles. One hopes for the best, but prepares for the worst" At the sounds of those casual words, put across so matter- of~factly by one of the last living pioneers of space explo~ ration, shock descended upon Eric Stiles as if he were under a collapsing bridge. It pressed the breath from his lungs and dis- played a shame within him and a smoldering anger that for much more than a decade he had suppressed. Now, today, finally, it sparked.

 

 

Prepare for the worst.

 

 

He leaned forward on the rusty cot, gazing downward at the empty floor. His knees before him might as well have been distant planets. What had he done all his life? Revere the best, expect the worst, and be prepared... for neither.

 

 

His skin felt tight, preformed. He drew anohher breath, huffed it out.

 

 

Across the cell, Spock pressed against the brick wall, mov- ing slowly from place to place. He seemed to be listening for outside activity. Listening... trying to decide where to aim the phaser, how to break them out.

 

 

His own breath rumbled in his ears. Just outgoing, in huffs, short and hot. Dry lips.

 

 

As if in a dream he watched Spock prime the freshly charged little pahn phaser. Green light, blue, yellow.

 

 

The Vulcan now stood sideways to present a narrow profile to the blast field, and extended his arm to aim at the portion of the wall he had chosen as their best bet to open an escape route without bringing the building or the Pojjana army down upon them. Orange... red.

 

 

"Sir!" Stiles bolted to his feet.

 

 

The ambassador hesitated and held fire. "Something?" Shadows lay across Spock's Vulcan features, harsh limited light on the other side, a life-size paper doll of ideals Stiles had thought were bigger than life.

 

 

"I'm sorry about this," Stiles announced. He met Spock's gaze without flinching. "From now on I'm thinking ahead." "What does that mean, specifically?" the Vulcan asked.

 

 

"It means you don't have permission to open fire." This time both of Spock's brows went up. "I beg your par- don?" Putting out a cold hand, Stiles noted that at least now he wasn't trembling.

 

 

"So you've got a phaser. So what? Once we get out of the cell, they've got energy detectors, tiers of fences, guards, weapons. We'll never get through." "You have a suggestion for me?" Spock asked.

 

 

"No, sir" Stiles said. "I have an order for you. This is a mili- tary mission. I'm the ranking Starfleet officer here. This is probably the most boneheaded thing I've ever done in my life, and I don't know if... yes, I do know. I've been deferring to you for half my life whether you were there or not, and it's time for that to stop. They're expecting us to escape but, sir, we're not here to escape." Another step brought him right up to Mr. Spock, face to face, man to man.

 

 

"I've been acting like a kid ever since I first saw your face on a history screen. It's time for me to start acting like the commander of this mission." He turned his hand palm up and did not lower it.

 

 

Standing before him in what appeared to be amazement and a few other emotions Stiles couldn't quite identity, Spock passed the next few moments without moving so much as a facial muscle.

 

 

His eyes moved first, shifting down to the phaser in his grip.

 

 

He gazed at the nugget-shaped weapon for several seconds as if it were the mean center of the universe.

 

 

Then, quite accommodatingly, he placed the weapon in Stiles' open hand. "As you wish." Stiles found himself in the middle of a prison cell, holding the center of the universe.

 

 

Limping back a step or two, the ambassador gave Stiles room to use the phaser. There was a particular quality to his voice as he asked, "What is your plan, Commander?" As he checked the phaser to be sure it was set where he thought it was, Stiles felt suddenly warm 'all over, and strong.

 

 

"Orsova thinks he's being cute putting me back in the same cell. He's an idiot. I spent years here. I helped rebuild this place after my first Constrictor. I know more about it than he does or any guard ever did. It's his big mistake. I'm not a twenty-one-year-old kid anymore." "And this is an epiphany for you?" Stiles blinked at him. That look was back on the Vulcan's face, that almost-smile, with the sparkle behind the eyes.

 

 

Amusement? Or something else?

 

 

"Your men knew their lives were in danger," the ambassador said, "yet you gave them confidence without deception. You marched them past the frozen moment that kills so many, and gave them a chance to fight for their ship and their lives.

 

 

Against the checklist that counts more than legends, with all flaws and hesitations understood as cells of the whole... you are a captain." Had the lights changed in here? Was it warmer?

 

 

Both peeved and flattered, Stiles shifted his weight and waved a hand at the cot. "You mean, all this time you believed in me and you let me sit there and snivel?" "It was never enough for me to believe in you," Spock said handily. "You had to believe--" "Please!" Stiles laughed. "Don't finish that! I smell a clich&" Spock rewarded him with that hint of a smile and a very slight bow. "I stand rebuked." Bewildered and amazed that he was actually smiling, Stiles sighed roughly and looked down at the utility phaser in his hand. He aimed it, but not at the wall. Instead, he pointed its bluntly conical nose in a completely illogical direction.

 

 

The ambassador looked at the concrete floor. "Where are we going?" "Sir, we're going straight down." And the cell lit up in a million lights, and the floor blew up, and the ceiling shredded. And Eric Stiles was in charge.

 

 

Chapter Twenty-two

 

 

BLISTERING HEAT SHOT through the cell. Pressure struck Stiles from all sides and spun him silly. The floor tilted, then disap- peared under his feet and gravity dragged him down. It almost felt like a Constrictor.

 

 

He struck the griddle of hot rock with his right hipbone and scraped down fifteen feet until a carpet of muck received him up to the ankles. Somehow he managed to stay on his feet, leaning sideways on a nubby slab that was suddenly very familiar. Funny how the years rushed up to remind him of things.

 

 

Took out too much of the floor--probably shouldn't have used the full-destruct setting. Too late now.

 

 

"Where's the phaser? Oh, I still got it. Couldn't feel my hand...." No wonder. His whole forearm was tingling. Probably bumped the funny bone. His fingers had convulsed around the utility phaser, luckily, and he still had it. He craned his neck to look up at the hole they'd created. Had anybody heard the cracking and crashing of stone? There hadn't been a blast noise, instead just the whine of the phaser before the rock cracked. If there wasn't a guard on the floor, maybe the crash hadn't been noticed. Please, please, please. Where was the ambassador?

 

 

Not waiting for his eyes to adjust, Stiles glanced around in the dimness, then started pawing at the broken flooring. Six feet away, the rocks shifted. Springing over there, Stiles tripped and landed on a knee. Recovering, he dug until a Vul- can ear appeared, luckily still attached to a Vulcan head.

 

 

"Sir!" he called.

 

 

Now, how would this look! Eric Stiles, the man who let First Officer Spock get buried alive!

 

 

The rabble scratched his hands. Some of the stones were hot to the touch as he pushed them off the ambassador. "Sir? Are you hurt?" Dust and pebbles sheeted into the muck and Spock sat up.

 

 

"Quite well, thank you... where are we?" Stretching off to both sides of them, bending into infinity not far away, the octagonal passageway was lit only by mediocre pencils of light through wrist-width drainage holes.

 

 

Stiles knew that they could only see at all because the sun was almost directly overhead and the sky had cleared. In another couple of hours, the tunnels would be pitch dark.

 

 

"It's a network of tunnels. We built them fight after my first Constrictor. The civil engineers thought the gravity effect would be lessened by a layer of planet strata and that maybe people could hide below, but it didn't work. They were death- traps. Eventually we just gave up and sealed them. I used to imagine using it to escape." "Why didn't you?" "And go where?" "Mmm... pardon me." "I couldn't get off the planet and nobody would help an alien. And I didn't exactly have a way of cutting through the floor either." Spock accepted Stiles's support as he got carefully to his feet and tested his injured leg. "How long do you suppose our escape will go undiscovered?" "Depends on whether Orsova wants to auction off a visit now or later. We'll know, because we'll hear the alarms go off.

 

 

Until then, we can just make our way through to the fresh- water ducts and get out. Darker in here than I remembered. looks like the roots are getting in too. Watch your step, Ambas- sador. With that comm link implant, can you tell me the direc- tion the CST is in?" "Yes." Spock paused a moment, and even though it seemed that he was doing something psychic, Stiles knew there was nothing like that going on. "East northeast... by north. Four miles... one eighth." "East by--four miles from here?" "Yes." "Are you sure about that?" "Very." "Perfect. I know just what they're doing." "Why do you ask?" "Because we're splitting up." "That may not be wise," Spock protested.

 

 

"Well, it wouldn't be my first time," Stiles flatly told him, and left no room for alternatives. "Come this way." Picking through the crushed flooring into the muck-layered tunnel bottom, even with Spock's bad leg they moved along faster than Stiles expected. The stink was incredible. Heavy roots searched their way down from the surface, hairlike ancil- lary tendrils unbroken until his hand tore them away, proving that no one had come down here in years. He led Spock in a direction he knew the search would never go if they were dis- covered gone. That was the plan, all part of where he had told Travis to bring the ship down--away from the mountains, which was the natural place to hide. Hmm... been thinking ahead all this time and never knew it.

 

 

"Up at that intersection there," he said to Spock, "you go left. You'll be able to get out in about a half mile. That's where the municipal slab ends. I'll go to the right and find Zevon and catch up, and I'll be better alone in case it's a trap. All due respect, you'll slow me down and I'm tired of being slow. I'm sorry if this isn't what you had in mind." "I had nothing in mind." What'd he say?

 

 

Must be clogged ears. Didn't hear fight. Stiles looked over his shoulder, seeing only the gray silhouette of the Vulcan two steps back. As he held aside a thick root for the ambassador to step by, he heard that sentence again in his head and finally just asked.

 

 

"You didn't have a plan? I thought the great amazing Mr.

 

 

Spock always had a plan." The ambassador tipped his head in a kind of shrug and spoke as they picked their way along.

 

 

"You remember what I told you about captains. I know my shortcomings. Discipline can be limiting. This is why Vulcans, with all our stringent codes of behavior, have not generally prevailed as great leaders, and humans, with your elastic spir- its, have. I've learned over the years to provide information and opportunity, then step aside and rely upon the more vibrant among us for actual tactics. I hoped you would rise to the occasion." "Are you saying," Stiles marveled, "you just fake it?" In a shaft of light from a drain hole, Spock's black eyes flickered smartly. "No. I trusted you to fake it." The ambassador offered that canny look for several seconds without even taking a step. Apparently he wanted a point made.

 

 

Overwhelmed, Stiles hovered in the middle of a step. Only a brainless drizzle of water somewhere in the underground sys- tem drew him out of his amazement and reminded him of what had to be done, and done soon.

 

 

"Said Frankenstein to the monster," he cracked. "Bear left and you'll get out. Once you get outside, keep to the low trail.

 

 

They'll be looking high first, the way to the mountains. We'll rendezvous east northeast at the lake." Spock reached out to grasp a root, ready to pnll himself for- ward. "Aye aye, captain." Flushed with delight and newly emboldened, Stiles looked up and laughed. "Thanks!"

 

 

Beverly Crusher took her latest series of biological readings on the shuddering body of the Romulan empress, and compared them with the readings from one hour ago. In the room, only the snap of the fireplace and the bleep of Data's computer, as he processed more information and sent what they had discovered onward to the other physicians across the empire, could be heard. There was not that much more that could be done.

 

 

For days now she had kept the empress and dozens of others alive by treating the symptoms. Over the past day, success had noticeably shrunk.

 

 

Crasher sat back, exhausted, and pressed her hands to the sides of her head. As she squeezed, her eyes throbbed and her thoughts bundled up into a lump. When she put her hands down, they were holding the only thought left that made sense.

 

 

She turned on her chair and sighed. Data noticed the move- ment and looked around at her. Over on the couch, still battered and bloody from the earlier encounter, Sentinel Iavo sat alone with his own guilts and troubles. He'd hardly moved all day.

 

 

'q'ime for drastic measures" Crusher told him. "She's not making it. She's slipping away. I can't hold on to her life much longer. Are you ready to do what I ask?" A destroyed man, Iavo's face had paled and his eyes were sunken with weariness. "Anything." Satisfied, Crusher stood up and strode to him. 'q'his is what I want. You're going to get me a fast ship with an escort battal- ion. I don't want any trouble at the border. I'm taking the empress into space to hook up with Dr. McCoy and a treatment serum." "There is no such serum," Iavo protested. "Is there?" "There may be. If she is to have any chance, we have to go." "Go where? Who has this serum?" "I'll give you the course once we're spaceborne. I don't want to take any more chances than that. Once again, Sentinel, you have a choice to make. Who's side are you going to be on for the next few hours?" Iavo stood up, wavered briefly, and clearly noted that Data also came to his feet behind Crusher.

 

 

"Your wisdom and silence have given me a new life," Iavo confirmed. "I will help you save hers. Tell me where you wish to go."

 

 

The air seemed a bit too cool in the lab office today. Zevon had thought about turning the heat up several times, but had regularly been distracted by suggestions pouring in from the students at Regional Spectroscopy. He had been reading them all day, between adjustments. The deflectors required almost daily adjustments now. Each adjustment worried him a faction more. The network of deflection stations operated fairly well, though only fairly. He had able technicians working the grid, but not skilled scientists. Several more years would go by before anyone on this planet was skilled enough in quantum physics and space science to replace Zevon's own advanced abilities. He was in a race now, a slow and deliberate race to the next Constrictor.

 

 

Some of these students had promise. There were occasional glimmers of hope beyond the daily push and grind. If be had more freedom to move about on the planet-- An old argument. Orsova's reins were tight upon Zevon.

 

 

Their mutuality was fragile. He dared not jar it.

 

 

A long morning. The afternoon stretched before him with a dozen problems. The electrical system in the complex had begun having fits a few minutes ago, and he could do nothing effective with the Constrictor system if the power kept blinking.

 

 

Perhaps he could accomplish something by remote while he waited. Yes, that would be better.

 

 

His chair rolled slightly under him as he reached to the cor- ner of his desk and keyed the external communications system, touching the autochannel.

 

 

"Sykora, are you there?" "l just arrived. You nearly missed me." "Did you visit the physician?" "They can do nothing for me here. I'll tend myself as I always have." "Sykora.." "I'm much stronger today. The welts are responding a little to the poultice l made yesterday. If only I had--" "You're not a nurse, you know." "On this planet, I am all there is for us. Would you like to argue now or later?" "Later, I suppose. Would it be possible for you to route yes- terday's matter-discharge telemetry readings to Light Geolog- ics at Laateh Mountain?" "Are you certain I have them here?" "Certain beyond life." "1 suppose that means I have them here. Give me time to arrange thefiles for relay." "You'll have it. For some reason, several power centers in the complex have failed. They're tracking the source." "Why would several fail at once?" "I hesitated to ask. It's enough that I must handle satellite electrical problems. If I begin solving local ones, I may forget to adjust the deflector grid." "1 would never let you forget." "I owe you my happiness." "Yes, you do. Who else would cook you Romulan dinners to keep you from choking on the pathetic Pojjana palate?" Zevon smiled. "No one on this rock. I shall signal you with the relay channel as soon as the power returns." "What do they say on a ship?--Affirmative?" "Affirmative, they say 'affirmative.' Are you--" He never finished his question. The conununications system crackled suddenly as if he'd put his hand into the den of a spit- ting animal. Almost as abruptly, it went dead.

 

 

"Sykora? Do you read?" Nothing.

 

 

He tried a reroute of the local flow.

 

 

"Sykora?" But there was still nothing. The system lay quiet. Someone would get to it.

 

 

Ah--there were the alarms from the central bunkers. Would the alarms go off for an electrical power failure? Strange.

 

 

Power didn't even go off after a Constrictor anymore. He'd made sure of that. Perhaps some work was being done some- where. He should're been notified.

 

 

He thought about calling to ask, but how could he call?

 

 

"Possibly the reason for the chill," he murmured to himself, and slipped into the leather-fringed chenille cardigan Sykora had given him at the precinct bazaar last year. The six shades of moss green, brushed soft as moss itself, threaded with dyed leather, comforted him when things went wrong. He liked to see the cardigan hanging on the wall hook next to his desk even better than wearing it. When he had it on, he couldn't see it so well.

 

 

However, today it would keep him warm. He pulled it over his shoulders, hitched it into place--awkward, since he was still sitting down and apparently too lazy to stand and began tying the leather lacings over his chest.

 

 

A green chenille Pojjana cardigan with dyed leather lacings, leather lacings threaded through his shoulderlength hair. there was so little left of him from that other life, he could no longer find hints of the times before. Only speaking to Sykom occasionally reminded him that he had ever lived anywhere else.

 

 

Through the closed window, he could still hear the alarms going off. Possibly there was some trouble. A revolt, perhaps.

 

 

They still happened sometimes, after a Constrictor, in fear of the next one. He could hide here, in retreat from such mundane troubles, and do his science, battling the next Constrictor in his own way. He hadn't won yet, but the enemy feared him.

 

 

Someone was pounding up the stairway down the hall.

 

 

Through the old walls of his office he could hear the elop-clop of boots on the wooden stairs. Good. That meant someone else was as bothered by the electrical burping as he was. Only when the footsteps pounded up the corridor toward his office did he look at the door in wonder. Why would the maintenance team come to this end of the hall?

 

 

The door rattled as if someone had kicked it, but did not open at first. Then, it did. It blew open as if knocked by a hard wind.

 

 

A thousand times Zevon had seen this instant in his mind, played out in a dozen ways, and it still surprised him.

 

 

"Eric? he gasped.

 

 

The years crumbled and dissolved as they stared at each other, comparing what they used to look like with what they looked like now. Zevon knew he must look different. His hair was longer, thonged with the tiny leather strips many Pojjana wore... but as a Romulan, eleven years meant less to him than it had to Eric Stiles.

 

 

Zevon's long-ago friend looked like neither a rosy-cheeked boy nor a dying waif, the only two personae Zevon had ever seen. He was a healthy man now, more slender, less clumsy, his blond hair a shade darker, his face clean-shaven. He still wore a Starfleet uniform, but of a new design. There were unborn weed pods stuck to the side of his trouserleg, and dry- ing muck on his boots.

 

 

Scarcely able to breathe, Zevon clasped the arm of his chair with one hand and the side of his desk with the other.

 

 

Eric's chest heaved from running, from climbing the stairs, and whatever other trials had brought him here. Behind their communion of astonished gawking, the alarms rang and rang in the main complex.

 

 

"So I'm a little late," he flipped. "So what?" Zevon pushed himself around a little more to face him, but still could not find the power to stand up.

 

 

Seeing that, Eric simply stepped to him, took his arm, and drew him to his feet. "Let's go." Zevon canle to his feet and gripped Eric's arms in a waltz of amazement and disbelief. "You look--you look--" "Yeah, got a shave too." Between his fingers Eric spun a piece of the fringe on Zevon's decorated vest. "You look like one of those goofy dancers at the Spring Cotillion when they used to make us work the kitchen. I know you gotta get along here, but do you gotta wear their clothes?" "I like these clothes." "Great. Bring 'em along. We're leaving." Not really surprised, Zevon did find himself startled by the abruptness of the demand. How could he possibly begin to explain?

 

 

"No, I can't go." "Yes, you can. Come on." "No--I must not leave the planet." He drew back with some force as he realized the serious intentions of what seemed ridiculous. "Eric, I have plans--get your hands off me, Eric!" "I haven't got time to argue." Eric let go of him, as request- ed, but instead raised his other hand and aimed a small black device directly at Zevon.

 

 

Zevon threw both hands up. "No, no!" In the sanle instant a pop of yellow light blinded him. He felt his head snap back and his body convulse. His senses spun wild. His knees buckled, but he never felt the floor strike him.

 

 

A jostling sensation--his eyes were still open enough to see the ceiling reel, the light flop about, and deliberate movement at his side. His own moan of protest boomed in his head. Vol- untary movement sank away.

 

 

Through the thickness of semiconsciousness Zevon heard the voice that had come to him so many times in the broken hours of early morning.

 

 

"Plenty of seats down in front. Welcome to the opening night of 'Prepare for the Worst,' starring the always efferves- cent Eric John Stiles. Reset your phasers and enjoy the show"

 

 

"Zevon... Zevon. Wake up. It's only light stun. Come out of it. You'll feel better in a few minutes." Some kind of bird cawed in the high tangled roots overhead.

 

 

The surroundings were ridiculous, an oasis of picnic quality, trying to tell them nothing was wrong and they could just sit here and maybe take a nap.

 

 

In the distance, though, more than two miles away, the alarms of the prison still hooted through the open sky. They'd seen airborne patrols sprint from the city toward the moun- tains, and at least two spotter planes veer toward the valley.

 

 

None yet angled toward the swamp. Most escapees had more sense than to come in this direction, at least not first.

 

 

Stiles glanced around to make sure there was enough root canopy over them that a spotter couldn't easily see them. He knew that if a plane got close enough the infrared scanners would pick up the heat off the tops of their heads. There was nothing to be done about that if it happened.

 

 

Zevon lay in a cradle of velvet-coated roots, the kind that were about to plunge into the nearest puddle and release their spores. Till then they were a bony cushion that offered a few minutes' rest. Stiles sat with him, absorbing the leather threads in his head and the Pojjana cardigan, pleased that at least Zevon didn't seem to be starving anymore. They were at least clothing and feeding him for all he'd done for them.

 

 

Still drowsy, Zevon gazed at him warmly, with shieldless affection and relief that they were both alive to have this reunion.

 

 

"Eric..." He smiled again.

 

 

Stiles smiled back, knowing the drug of phaser stun was giving them this uncrystallized and uncluttered moment. His hand closed on Zevon's wrist as it had that last day so long ago. For a moment there was nothing around them, no planet, no problems, no past or future troubles to distract them. Cer- tainly nothing to drive them apart anymore.

 

 

Gradually, though, inevitably, Zevon's perceptions cleared and he shifted his shoulders. They held onto each other, absorb- ing the wondrous confirmation that neither was dead, as each cemainly had entertained in the troubling hours before sleep.

 

 

"I didn't think you'd even speak to me," Stiles attempted.

 

 

His voice cracked on the last couple of words.

 

 

Zevon rewarded him with a kind of glow in his eyes. "Why would I not?" "Well, I am a little late...." "Yes, you are." "I swear, I thought they got you out." "I know you did. Why did you stun me?" "Oh, because you resisted my charms." Taking a better grip on Zevon's arm, Stiles helped him sit up and lean against a particularly large and ancient root. Nauseat- ed, Zevon closed his eyes briefly, fielding a wave of dizziness from the change of position.

 

 

"Are you okay?" Stiles asked.

 

 

Zevon leered at him with unfocused eyes and finally a clear- ing head. A perception of irony brought the faintest of smiles.

 

 

"Yes, Eric, I'm okay?' The buzz of distant aircraft funneled down to them from the foothills. Stiles didn't look away as the awkward moment passed between them.

 

 

"So," he began, "how y'been?" With a grimace of irony and another smile, Zevon sat up and shook pods from his hair. "I've been busy." His face patterned by the shadows of roots overhead, he blinked into the sinking sun. "Where have you taken me?" "We're out on the swamp flats. Cuffo Lake's a mile or so that way. I was hoping you'd come around so I didn't have to carry you any more. We're under cover, at least."

 

 

Another shadow came over them, this one long, crisp, and near. Stiles didn't look around. He knew.

 

 

'Whis is Ambassador Spock," he said to Zevon.

 

 

Zevon peered up at Spock, fitted the puzzle pieces into place, and accepted what he saw. He bowed his head courte- ously. "Your fame precedes you. I am honored." Spock returned the gesture. "As am I, your excellency." "Centurion, please." "As you wish." As Spock came to sit beside them on a fat root, Zevon said, "Royalty is the mantle I was born to. Centurion is the rank I earned." "Then Mr. Stiles's report is correct? You are fourteenth in line for the throne?" "Thirteenth, now." Spock paused. "Yes, of course. Pardon my error. If you will indulge me for a few minutes, Centurion, I shall explain our problem." Zevon glanced at Stiles, then back to Spock. "Explain." "So they're dying. So what?" A shaft of guilt ran through Eric Stiles at hearing Zevon using affectations of language he had obviously learned during their incarceration. He felt as if he were looking into a curved mirror. Even after all these years, Zevon sounded like Stiles, and it was both nice and weird.

 

 

"I understand," Stiles allowed. "They didn't come for you.

 

 

But it's important, Zevon. And you're the only one." "I hardly believe that. I am the convenient one." Stiles winced inwardly. Better let that go for now. "What happened after I left?" "Once Orsova carne sober again that day, he thought about what you said, that we might be able to predict the Constrictor waves. He came to me and wanted to know how. I told him.

 

 

He understood none of it, of course, yet I suppose it sounded to him as if I understood something. He went to the authorities and warned that a Constrictor was coming." "I'11 bet they listened hard," Stiles chided.

 

 

"They hardly listened," Zevon confirmed, his frustration long scabbed over. '~Fhen the Constrictor did come. Millions died. And the people thought Orsova was a genius." "Ugh... what people won't swallow...." "Orsova used his new influence to get me more equipment.

 

 

He became the 'head' of the Constrictor project." Spock clarified, "The science of which he knew nothing at all?" "Are you kidding?" Stiles said. "He doesn't have a clue." "Nothing," Zevon confirmed. "He manipulates the power, I tell him what the science can and cannot do." "You've been working at the pharoah's counting house while he gets the glory." "I could never have had the glory, Eric. Don't mourn it. If the population had ever found out I was the one who started the Constrictor, they would've killed me. I cannot be replaced in Red Sector. If I am not here to do this, all the Pojjana will suffer. I would gladly slit my own throat if I thought that would stop the phenomenon. Orsova is the umbrella shielding me from the limelight. He can have the attention." Witness to humility and guilt taken to the extreme and somehow transmorphed into a positive, Stiles glanced at Spock and noted the Vuican's unmistakable respect for a much younger and much less accomplished scientist. That caught Stiles in a grip between Spock's generosity and Zevon's humil- ity.

 

 

Danre, was this confusing.

 

 

"Also, one must say," Zevon began again, "Orsova was most tricky and skilled at playing the politics, in which I had no interest at all except what he could get for me. The Constric- tors were coming every few months and I quickly became very busy. Everything depended upon my predictions becoming more accurate. The more accurate, the more people thought Orsova was a genius. He developed a network, he controls many resources and lives like a king--" "And how do you live?" Stiles asked.

 

 

"That matters not at all, not in the least" Zevon warned, hearing a defensiveness that wasn't necessary for him. "He's welcome to it. My purpose is served. The Pojjana would never have accepted a Romulan as the genius of the Constrictor.

 

 

Orsova allowed me to succeed much earlier than ever would have been possible. I invented new types of antigrays, com- pression suits, architectural implements, metallurgy--many things that Orsova has parlayed into a huge Constrictor- survival industry. He has the power to decide where all the resources go, all the revenue, new materials, technology, the buildings--and I tell him what to say. He wields so much power now that he is the de facto head of the government. As he works his plans and I work mine, fewer and fewer people die with each Constrictor. In the last one, only six thousand planetwide. Six thousand, Eric!" The victory in Zevon's voice and the emotion in his expres- sion cut Stiles to the core. He pressed Zevon's arm in approval, knowing what that meant to him.

 

 

"I knew we had to control energy to survive," Zevon went on. "I have an energy division, a school of physics, a school of mechanical science, defense division, deflection-grid network all over the continent.... " "Why a defense system?" Spock asked. "Have you had problems with the Bal Quonott?" "Not yet. And they've had no interest in us. Yet. We have no spaceborne fleet with which to defend ourselves. I knew I could never develop conventional weapons sitting trapped on a planet. Instead I've used tricks I learned while trying to read or deflect the Constrictor waves. Using the mass of the planet as an anchor for--" "The composite beam that almost killed us, I bet." "Killed you... ?" "Well, how do y'think we got here? Magic? We came in a ship that got sucked into that damned thing!" "Oh--" Zevon moaned as if he'd just remembered, just real- ized. A sheet of pallor drained across his face. "I never imag- ined you might come yourself...." Now that he'd gotten his pound of flesh, Stiles gave him a light punch in the chest. "That's okay, we got out of it. Come on, let's get moving. We've got work to do." He pulled Zevon to his feet, while at their side Mr. Spock also stood up and scanned the horizon for trouble.

 

 

The trouble, though, was right here.

 

 

"Eric, I want to go back to my lab." Zevon announced. "I don't want to go with you." Stiles huffed out his disbelief. 'Tm serious, Zevon. Don't kid around. Lives are at stake. The stability of a hundred star systems are at stake, the Romulan Empire's--" Zevon squared off before him. "I want to go back to my life.

 

 

This is where I belong now, where I do good work. I refuse to go." "Sure, refuse. I'll just stun you again and carry you the rest of the way if I have to." "Commander" Spock began, "perhaps we should--" Stiles waved his stun-set phaser demostrably. "Sir, I'm sorry, but there's no time. I want my ship away from this plan- et. We can talk while we move. That's the direction. Go on, Zevon, unless you want another dose." "Eric, this is not at all like you." 'q'oo bad. Ambassador, which way?" Hesitating only a moment, Spock said, "Follow me, please." The traipse through the root swamp was messy, tedious, and most of all uneasy. Stiles didn't like holding a phaser on Zevon, but he never let it waver. Whenever Zevon looked at him, he brandished the phaser and made sure his thumb was on the fire pad. How many times did he look at the weapon himself, making good and sure it was set on stun and nothing worse. It had been years upon years since he'd been in a position to use a hand weapon against another person. The idea of making a mistake absolutely petrified him to the bone.

 

 

Before him, Zevon's moss-green cardigan flickered in the rays of the lowering sun through the huge twisted roots over- head and around them. He endured delirious joy that Zevon was still alive and here with him, tempered by the obvious ten- sion of Zevon's resistance. He'd been brainwashed or some- thing. He'd given up on being rescued and, surviving any way he could, had conditioned himself to live here, convinced him- self it was right.

 

 

I'll talk him out of it. Now that I'm back, everything can go ahead and change. I'll walk him through it. He'll like it in a week

 

 

"Eric, I don't wish to go" Zevon attempted again after a half mile. "How can you force me?" "You're a Romulan, you understand force, right?" "Orsova will do everything he can to keep us from leaving the planet. If you let me go, I can convince him to allow you to leave Red Sector. He wants no outside--" "What's wrong with you?" Stiles blazed, pulling up almost to Zevon's side so they could look at each other between steps.

 

 

"Don't you understand? Of course he doesn't want outside interference! I saw the looks in those soldiers' faces. The Poj- jana see Orsova as if they wouldn't survive without him, like he's holding up the planet all by himself. If you or the Federa- tion or anybody manages to stop the Constrictor, suddenly he wouldn't be the great savior anymore. That's why he stuck Mr.

 

 

Spock and me in a cell and wouldn't deal. He doesn't want anybody to stop it!" "I have to stay here, Eric, I have to be here every day. We have succeeded in reducing the effect of the waves, but my system requires almost daily adjustment and no one else call do that. I have no one thoroughly trained enough yet to take my place. Every day I breathe, I extend to the Poijana the chance of someday outdoing my expertise. That has been my goal. I have arranged for Orsova to sponsor engineering and science colleges, apprenticeships and clinics so that some day the Pojjana can go on without me. That day has not come." "You're taking this self-blame too far, Zevon." Stiles tripped on a cracked root and almost fired the phaser by accident.

 

 

Ahead of them, Spock glanced back while Stiles recovered, then moved on.

 

 

Why didn't he come back here and lay some logic on Zevon? Why didn't he talk about the numbers? The rational analysis of what a collapsing Romulan Empire would do to everything around it? Why didn't he talk about the political and military and trade black hole that would suddenly suck the life out of everything that had been so carefully balanced for so long? What good was a genius hero Vulcan monument if he didn't come back here and lay down a case nobody could resist?

 

 

"You've been brainwashed;' Stiles said with contempt. "It happens. Prisoners go through it all the time. Sympathizing with their captors' causes, forgetting where they came from, forgetting their native language----" Zevon grasped a network of root filaments and ripped them from up to down. "I do not wish to leave, Eric! Not for the sake of the royal family or the empire or the Federation. I also do not wish to be exposed. Orsova provides me with cover and lets me work. Every day I can make up a little of what I have done. Do you know I am virtually the only alien this planet trusts?" Stiles paused as his uniform shirt caught on a thorn and he twisted to disengage it. "Just because you were part of what started all this, you don't owe them your whole life. They can do a few things on their own, can't they? You've become way too custodial about these people. You even dress like a Poj- jana!" Zevon whirled and stopped dead in front of him, enraged and insulted. "I am Pojjana!" They stood in a sluice of muck. Up 'ahead, Spock stopped and waited, his expression grim; curious.

 

 

"And elephants have four knees" Stiles chided. "So what?" A flurry of anger rose in Zevon's face. "You should know better than anyone! Your own people would never have come for you if not for that elderly physician with so many tricks.

 

 

Have you forgotten? Since coming here my eyes have been opened. I was stifled in the imperial system. Here, unfettered, unrestricted, with Orsova to field the--" "I know, I know, you've proven yourself brilliant;' Stiles confirmed. "You've kept a lot of people alive. I always knew you could. Even the Federation doesn't have that beam you put on us. If you could be that brilliant and save that many lives and you still have to hide behind Orsova because these idiots are so xenophobic that they won't accept help from an alien, then to hell with 'em. You've done enough. Somebody else needs you more now." "The royal family? All these years I knew you were not the one who failed. I knew they had simply decided not to bother getting me out. Did you think I had no comprehension of my own blood ties? I have worse than apathy for the Romulans, and their way, and their crown. I have hatred for them. Some day, either the Federation or the Bal Quonott or the Romulans will come and overran the Pojjana, and when that happens I am determined that my people, these people, will be able to defend themselves, hold their own, and even prevail. I have no prime directive. I am free to help anyone I want to help." Fired by the depth of Zevon's conviction, Stiles raised the utility phaser. "I won't leave you here a second time. Just turn around and walk. I swear to God I'll stun you." Zevon did move forward after the ambassador, but contin- ued his point with ferocity. "Even without space infrastructure, we have learned to build and operate survival equipment and refined the barometer so that we not only have warning, but can also predict to some degree the intensity of the waves. My equipment requires almost constant attention. If I leave and intensity is ntisread, millions could die. Does that mean noth- ing to you? Have you changed so much?" "Keep walking. I don't want to hear any more." He kept it that way. With his manner and his expression he cut off any further discussion, as they made way through the swamp and finally broke out into the open valley beyond. Now they couldn't see the city at all, nor hear the alarms anymore, only hear the occasional drone of a distant search plane. So far, so good.

 

 

When Stiles broke out of the ferns and growth, freeing his leg from the last of the grasping roots, Zevon and Spock were already standing on the open meadow, looking out over the elongated expanse of Cuffo Lake. The eternally yellow-green water, rich with biology and nutrients that reflected the sun- light with a nearly neon intensity, was enhanced that much more by the sunset. The sun, resting now on the tips of the far away mountains, illuminated the valley and showed them unequivocably that the valley was empty. Three hills, a rocky ridge, the meadow flats, and Cuffo Lake. Not so much as a tree more than that.

 

 

The ambassador strode a few yards out into the meadow and swept his gaze in all directions. "The CST should be here.

 

 

I'm certain of the coordinates... The directional signal deft- nitely indicates this location, but I see no sign of them" Zevon turned to Stiles. "You have to let me go now, Eric.

 

 

Your ship is not here." "Yes, it is. Ambassador, can you hail them with that implant?" Spock touched the pressure point behind his ear where the microcom was either situated or had its subcutaneous controls.

 

 

"Spock to Saskatoon. We are at the rendezvous point. What is your location?" The soft buzz of the tiny mechanism was hard to under- stand, but good to hear. "This is Perraton. Is Commander Stiles with you ?" "Yes, he is." Stiles said, "Tell him 'Lightfoot confirms.'" "Mr. Perraton, 'Lightfoot confirms.'" "Acknowledged. Here we come." "This is bewildering." Spock frowned and looked at Stiles.

 

 

"These are the coordinates. The ship should be virtually on this spot. From where are they broadcasting?" Stiles didn't bother answering. He didn't need to. The answer shimmered on the lake's surface. The still water began to froth, then to erupt as if it were suddenly the center of a resting volcano. Zevon and Spock both looked up into the darkening sky to see if the power were coming from a descending ship, but the sky was still clear.

 

 

They looked now at Stiles and saw him watching the lake's surface. They too turned in time to see sharp nonreflective metal formations break the surface and sheet free of the cling- ing water and the biorich glaze living there. The disruption got bigger and bigger, destroying the beautiful flat lake water with a violent commotion. In the rattle and swoosh of water and engines, the Saskatoon's industrial nose surged furiously out of the water, and the rest of the ship broke free of the suction.

 

 

The ship emerged enormously from the water, like a blue whale breaching and not bothering to dive back in. It hovered over the lake while the last of the water drained from its nacelles and spiraled back into the lake, creating a sheen of droplets that sparkled in the setting sun.

 

 

"The bottom of the lake" Spock marveled. "Of course. A scan-proof shelter."

 

 

"Just thinking ahead." Stiles grinned proudly and eyed him.

 

 

"You spent too much time on starships." "Apparently." "This is Perraton. We'll set down on the plain directly to your right, on the other side of that ridge." "What's wrong with the transporters?" Stiles asked.

 

 

"Is there something wrong with the transporter?" "Yup. You broke 'em when you beamed through that reflec- tor envelope. They're under repair." Politely Spock asked, "Permission to grant them permission to land?" "Permission granted to grant permission," Stiles responded.

 

 

The ambassador seemed impressed, maybe a litfie embar- rassed that he hadn't thought of this, and cued his microlink.

 

 

"You have permission to set down, Mr. Perraton. We shall stand by." "Let's go over the ridge;' Stiles ordered, "and be there when they maneuver down. It'll take us a few minutes to climb over the ridge." "I don't want to go, Eric." "My finger's on the button, Zevon." The ridge was the only rapture on the otherwise pristine meadow landscape, created over a hundred years ago by ambi- tious roots from the swamp moving below the surface till they hit rock and tried to find the surface again. The roots had grown and grown beneath the crust, fattening and searching and hitting stone, until the stone began to surge upward eight or ten meters. Sometime along the way, the roots had died off, leaving the rocky ridge as the only scar on the meadowlands.

 

 

The ridge wasn't very high, only a couple of stories at most, but footing was treacherous and picky. They could hear the hum of the CST as it maneuvered on the other side of the ridge, but could see nothing but the abutments of stone and hard dirt.

 

 

Stiles glanced into the sky behind them, fearful that the CST might be picked up on scanners now that it was out of the protective cover of the deep lake. They were only minutes from safety now. Once inside the Saskatoon they could buzz away from this forsaken planet and get out there and do some real good. Then he could talk some sense into Zevon. Once Zevon got back into space, saw how wide the galaxy really was, remembered things that Stiles had also forgotten during his incarceration here--everything would be good again. It would be.

 

 

Stiles took the rear, holding the phaser where it would do some good as he picked and climbed his way up the rocky slope behind the ambassador and Zevon. He was watching the rocks, nursing out footholds and handholds and avoiding the dangerous sharp edge of the mica-like slabs, when a hard force caught him across the jawbone.

 

 

The mighty blow drove him backward and spun him side- ways. He skidded onto his side on a sheet of pebbles. As his head rang, he managed to put out an ann and stop himself from sliding all the way down. "Stand still or die!" Stiles blinked up through a wave of dizziness.

 

 

There above them, taking an attack stance between them and freedom, stood two armed Pojjana assault troopers and an even more heavily armed woman. A Romulan woman!

 

 

"Drop your weapon!" The woman aimed her own rifle fero- ciously at Stiles' head. "Or I will kill you now!"

 

 

Chapter Twenty-three

 

 

"SYKORA, DON'T KILL HIM!" Zevon rushed to Stiles's side and put himself between Stiles and the woman's rifle. Spock, luckily, stood aside and let events play out as he watched with attentive interest. He put his hands up, though, so the guards wouldn't arbitrarily open up on him either. A Romulan woman! Or was she Vulcan?

 

 

Either way, she shouldn't be here at all.

 

 

"How can she be here?" Stiles demanded.

 

 

From higher on the rocks, Spock agreed. "This is Red Sec- ton Did the Romulans violate that without the Federation's--" "The empire has nothing to do with me. I came on my own to protect Zevon," the woman snarled with a toss of her long braids. She was absolutely fierce in her intent. "Anyone who threatens him, I will mutilate!" As she brandished her weapon at Stiles, Zevon held up a hand to back the woman off. "Sykora, please. This is Eric." "Eric--" Her tone changed instantly. Her eyes narrowed.

 

 

"Eric Stiles?" "Yes." "What's going on?" Stiles asked as Zevon pulled him to his feet. "What's she doing here?" "Drop your weapon !" Sykora denlanded.

 

 

"No," Spock interrupted. "Dropping a phaser could be dead- ly. If the trooper would simply take it--" Sykora snapped her fingers at one of the guards, who snatched the utility phaser out of Stiles' hand. That quickly were the tables turned.

 

 

Frustrated, Stiles griped, "How'd she find us out here?" "He is my husband;' Sykora said for herself. "I took after him." "Husband? Since when!" Zevon nodded. "Sykora is the reason I knew you got the message through to my family. And why I knew they were never planning to come for me." "I am a subcommander" Sykora interrupted, "in the Imperi- al Solar Guard. I could never stomach the royal family's aban- donment of their prince. I want nothing to do with those disloyal monsters. I confiscated a three-man ship and came to rescue trim myself." "My own defense systems destroyed her ship," Zevon admitted with some sheepishness. "Her two crewmen fought and were killed by the Pojjana planetary guard, but Sykora succeeded in finding me." "And I will kill any who threaten him," the determined woman said. "Even Orsova fears and respects me." Even deprived of his weapon and his moment of success, Stiles leered at Zevon in private admiration. "She's pretty tough." "Yes... she is." "How'd she find us?" "I actually don't know." Zevon looked at his wife. "How did youT' A little more agreeable, though no more mellow, Sykora ges- tured to Zevon's cardigan. "You're always too careless with your own well-being. I take care of you. The fringe is a homing grid." Zevon touched his sweater, then gazed at her in what could only be adoration. "How kind..." BZZZZZWA P!

 

 

Phaser stun! No mistaking that sound!

 

 

The Pojjana troopers sprang like stricken cats and flopped to the ground, only an instant before a third beam struck Sykora and she was pitched into a convulsion that left her unconscious in a crotch of stone.

 

 

Zevon gasped in anguish and scrambled to his wife's side, but there was nothing to be done for her but wait for the effect to wear off. The tables had turned again.

 

 

Over the crest of the ridge appeared a beautiful sight-- Travis Perraton leading a landing party that included the evil twins, a handful of security trainees, and Dr. Leonard McCoy.

 

 

"We heard the trouble," Travis said. "Ambassador Spock cued his comm link and we heard everything. You all right, Eric?

 

 

"Why? Am I bleeding?" "Some blood on your neck there." "I'm okay, Tray, thanks." Stiles accepted a service phaser and looked at the handiwork. "Round up those three and stuff 'era into the equipment locker." "Even the lady?" Stiles met Zevon's hopeful eyes, but he had certain deci- sions to make and certain dangers to consider. "That's no lady.

 

 

That's a subcommander." "Uh-huh. Got it. Lock her up, boys." The Bolt brothers assisted Dr. McCoy down a fairly stable rock incline, where he stopped before Zevon and gave the Romulan prince a good looking over.

 

 

"Good evening," he said. "I'm Count Vladimir McCoy. I vant your blod."

 

 

"Orsova." "Again? What do you want now! I tried to put that poison in Zevon, but he's gone!" "They have escaped through the root swamp. I will give you the coordinates of their space ship. You still have a chance to bring them to me. The doctors and Zevon. Alive if you can.

 

 

Dead if you cannot," "How can I chase them if they go into space? I have no spaceships." "You ask too many questions, You will have my ship. I will arrange for you to be close to Zevon. Prepare yourself. You are about to become a spaceman."

 

 

Chapter Twenty-four

 

 

As THE TWO POJJAN guards were heaved off into the waiting CST by the crewmen, Zevon hurried to his wife's side and knelt beside her, touching her face. "I will not even speak to you about this unless you treat her first." "She'll recover," Stiles complained. "It's just phaser stun" "No, sh&s ill. Like you when you were trapped here, we have no way to treat her on this planet. She's not Pojjana.

 

 

Their medicine has been working only poorly for her since--" "Uh-oh," McCoy preempted, and immediately came to Sykora's side. "Better check that." Stiles glanced at Spock. Were they too late? Did Sykora have the royal family thing? He scrubbed the conversation they'd just had to see if there'd been any mention of Sykora's bloodlines. Had he missed something? Did she have this plague that had everybody so worked up?

 

 

While McCoy scanned the unconscious woman with some kind of double-built medical scanner, Stiles turned to Travis.

 

 

"Go back on board. Get ready to lift off." "Aye aye," Travis said.

 

 

'Tll be right there. Go on." Over the fallen form of the Romulan woman, McCoy let Jason Bolt pull him back to his feet. "She's not royal family.

 

 

No trace of their DNA at all. She's got hyperplexic myelitis.

 

 

I've only seen it twice before in Vulcanolds." Fearful just at the sound of that, Zevon looked at him beseechingly. "Is it dangerous?" "Eventually, it would be fatal." "Can you stop it?" "I need to get her on a table." The noncommittal answer clearly frightened Zevon.

 

 

Stiles watched him. The whole Romulan royal family was sick and dying, and all that meant anything to Zevon was this one woman. He parted his lips to utter some words of assur- ance, but never got the chance. As the ship sat ducklike on its landing struts, the skin of the CST crackled with an electrical surge that threw sparks all over the people standing on the ridge. For an instant Stiles thought something in or on the ship had exploded; then the culprit came into view. Over the resting form of the CST rose a hovering craft of unfamiliar design, made of dark blue metal and etched with white bolts in an industrial pattern of hull plates. Against the darkening sky, the blue ship was nearly invisible except for the pinpoint etchings of white dots that appeared almost like free-floating constella- tions.

 

 

Would've been pretty if it hadn't been firing on them.

 

 

"On board!" Stiles shouted. "On board! On board!" As Spock and two CST crewmen hustled McCoy down the other side of the ridge and Zevon hoisted his wife's limp form over his shoulder, Stiles aimed his service phaser at the roaring newcomer and opened fire.

 

 

His phaser scored the body of the other ship with a great show of noise and sizzling, but the wounds were only superfi- cial.

 

 

The blue ship fired again, but not at him. Instead its weapons scored the body of the CST as it had before, leaving steaming gashes on the nose and side of the big tender. As he skittered down the incline, he heard the CST's impulse engines throb to power. In a few seconds, they'd be ready for escape velocity.

 

 

That is, if they weren't fried right here on the ground. Gouts of smoke blew across the bottom of the ridge, blinding him to the people running in front of him toward the tender's ramp.

 

 

"Keep going!" he shouted, and fired again.

 

 

A third time the lumbering blue ship screamed at them.

 

 

Once more the deadly energy weapons scratched the body of the CST. If that beam hit the defenseless people running toward the ship--- A hard form--metal--slapped the bottom of his boot and tripped him. He skidded forward, almost dropping his phaser.

 

 

The ramp! In the smoke he hadn't seen how close he was!

 

 

"Travis, get us out of the atmosphere!" he called, scram~ bling on all fours up the treaded surface. "They can't come after us!" The ramp whined up behind him. He found himself on the midships deck, with Alan Wood pulling him out of the way of the closing ramp.

 

 

"Always an English butcher around when you need one" Stiles choked, gagging the last of the smoke out of his lungs.

 

 

''Tea's good for that;' Alan offered. "I'11 get you some. Want cake?" "I want red alert!" "Red alert, aye." Alan swung him to his feet and Stiles raced through the hatches to the cluttered little bridge, where Zevon sat on the deck, holding his groggy but awakening wife.

 

 

Beside them, Dr. McCoy had been planted firmly in one of the anchored chairs at tactical. Jeremy manned the science station, Travis was just ordering full power to the escape velocity thrusters, and the evil twins were at the helm and navigation.

 

 

Spock was standing beside the helm.

 

 

Stiles skidded into place behind the helm and in front of his command chair, but did not sit. "You look good there" he commented.

 

 

Spook seemed surprised that he'd even been noticed. "Com- forting to know one is picturesque." Indulging in a nervous grin, Stiles watched the main screen, which showed the thinning atmosphere as the CST powered toward space, and the side monitors, which showed the blue ship with its constellation of white hull buttons moving delib- erately after them.

 

 

Quite abruptly, the mist on the main screen parted with a nearly audible swoosh, and they broke out into the blackness of open space. Unlike the darkening evening on the planet's surface, here it was once again day, bright and fierce, as they moved away from the protection of the planet with the sun on their port side.

 

 

"They're following us!" Jeremy White gulped. "Coming right into space after us!" Zevon left his wife's side, bolted to his feet and grasped the edge of the helm and stared at the main screen. "Impossible!" "Well, here they come anyway !" The whole CST jolted then with a terrible butt-stroke from the pursuing ship, a blow that peppered the tender with hot energy.

 

 

Stiles glanced at Zevon, fielding a bitter distrust. "Shields up. Battle stations." "I'm not imagining things, am I?" Stiles asked. "That's not a Pojjana ship, is it?" "No!" Zevon insisted.

 

 

"Nor do I recognize it," Ambassador Spock said. "I have never seen that configuration or those markings." "Neither has the computer" Travis confumed. "No cata- loguing at all." "Increase speed as soon as you can" Stiles said.

 

 

Zack Bolt frowned at his nav controls. "They're hailing us through my nav impulses. Must not be compatible with Feder- ation tech." "Can you make it so we can hear it?" "Well... attempting." He poked at his controls, and a moment later a completely unexpected sound burbled from the other ship.

 

 

"Surrender. You have no chance against this fighting space- ship. Turn back now and you will live." Rage boiled up in Stiles's head till he thought his hair would blow off. He pounded the fight button.

 

 

"Orsova! What are you doing in that ship! Where'd you get a thing like that!" "Surrender now or be killed. We have more speed and more weapons. I will kill you before I let you leave the sector." "Cut him off!" Stiles roared. "I don't want to hear his voice again! He can't want me back that badly--he can't care about me that much! Travis! What's the gasball got?" Travis bent again over the tactical scanners. "High shield- ing... full warp capacity... strike-force shields... weapons are--" He paused and shook his head in worried admiration.

 

 

"It's a fighting warship, Eric. We're completely outmatched:' 'q'wins, get us out of this stupid solar system? Stiles ordered.

 

 

"Full impulse as soon as you can. Travis, you take weapons yourself. Transfer all the reserve from the cutting phasers and find some distance power. Get ready to use the welding torches if they get too close. I want to skin that bastard!" At the nav station, Zack Bolt turned to look at him. "We're a combat support tender, not a battleship! We can't beat that thing!" "We don't have to beat it. He wants us alive for some rea- son." Everybody looked at him as if he'd grown feathers.

 

 

"You're gonna have to explain that one," Travis said.

 

 

"ff he wanted to kill us," Stiles told them, "why would he shoot at the CST instead of nice bald helpless people on the ground?" Unsure of that, Spock tightened his brow and waited for more explanation, so Stiles gave it to him.

 

 

"That gives me an advantage. It means I should run harder than I fight. Getting away is more important than beating them. All we have to do is knock 'em down long enough to get away." The CST hummed and cranked its way toward full speed, chased easily by the constellation ship with Orsova impossibly aboard. Against the pure blackness of night, the enemy ship's blue body nearly disappeared and its hundreds of white plate bolts didn't, so that it looked indeed like a set of stars rushing freely after them in space. But every few moments the other ship made its solid presence known with a full-power blast that shocked the CST to its bones and made everybody grab for something to hold onto.

 

 

"How're we doing?" Stiles asked when he thought enough time had gone by.

 

 

"Not an inch," Jeremy sourly reported. "In fact, they're clos- ing." His teeth gnashing, Stiles growled at the side screens.

 

 

"Maybe if I give myself up, he'll be happy and leave the rest of you alone." Even in the midst of rocking and rolling, Spock found a way to face him gracefully. "No, Mr. Stiles. That is one decision I will not allow." "You can't tell me what to do, with all due respect, sir" "I know. Orsova has no ship like that. Someone is either supporting or manipulating him. That power must have farther- reaching goals than being entertained with your capture. And," he added, rather gently, "once in a lifetime is enough to sacri- fice yourself to that man." In spite of everything, Stiles smiled at the sentimental reminder that Spock knew all the mistakes he'd made, and liked him anyway.

 

 

A javelin of weapon power struck the CST and backhanded it across space. The engines screamed. The crew and passen- gers were throttled, bouncing off the equipment around them.

 

 

Stiles tried to stay on his feet, but ended up sharing a chair with Jason Bolt at the helm as the ship went howling on its edge through space.

 

 

While Jason struggled to recover, Jeremy called, 'What was our port engine! We can't make top speed any more, Eric!" "Can we have emergency warp?" "If you don't mind a complete meltdown." 'What's it. No more running. Get ready to turn and fight." From the glances of the crew, he might as well have ordered them to cut off their hands and throw them in a pot. They were brave enough going into battle situations when necessary to repair the important ships, but it wasn't often that they were the center of the baffle---the thing actually being shot at on purpose.

 

 

He saw it in their faces. l'llm and fight? Fight that warship coming at them at flank speed?

 

 

"It's me he wants;' Zevon spoke up. He came around the helm to face both Stiles and Spock. "I am the key to his con- trol, Eric, not you. Let him take me. Then you and your ship can go."

 

 

"I can't let you go, you know that," Stiles said. "We need you. Your blood--" "I hate the Romulan ruling family" Zevon claimed bitterly.

 

 

"I hate the government that flagrantly caused the Constrictor. I hate the relatives who abandoned me. I deride the stupidity of a system that allows birth connections to command important missions. I hate those of my heritage, and now I am told I must go save them? I have no interest in saving my philosophical enemies." "Travis, keep firing on that ship," Stiles ordered. "Just fire at will, any chance you get to hit 'era." That done, furious and frustrated, he barked at Zevon. "So it would be better to go back there and serve a system that allows a scumsucker like Orsova to end up in control of a whole planet? What's the mat- ter with you?" "My husband is a genius!" Sykora rose from the deck, still pale from the phaser stun, her face a mask of defiance. She moved forward and steadied herself by gripping the back of the command chair. "He has designed a spaceborne barricade that will funnel the Constrictor waves around the planet. If we help you, will the Federation come and build our barricade in space? No! You will go your way and let the Pojjana planet crumble behind you!" As enemy fire rocked the CST again, the real challenge was right here, right now.

 

 

"Why should I mast the FederationT' Zevon confirmed. "After I save the Romulans, you will leave again as you did before" "We can help the Pojjana" Spock firmly told them both, "but they must be receptive to our help:' Zevon spun to him. "why should I trust you? Why were you not more persistent? When you saw your presence was good for them, why did you leave?" "The Pojjana asked us to leave." "But you left!" Spock seemed to be searching for a way to explain when Stiles took over. "Never mind, Ambassador. Until today, the only Federation citizen Zevon's ever spoken to in his life was me. He doesn't get it." Fixing his glare on Zevon, he forced himself to ignore the pounding the ship was taking. "You're going. I didn't go through this for nothing! We need you to go. ff the Empire falls, the whole sector is going with it. Like it or not, you're the last royal family member with unadulterated blood and you're coming with us:' "No, Mr. Stiles. He is not." Spock's announcement, without a hint of doubt or question, took Stiles completely by surprise. Everyone else, too, from the looks on their faces.

 

 

Digesting the words from his idol as quickly as he could, Stiles jabbed a finger toward Zevon. "But he's wrong!" "He is wrong according to us," the ambassador contradicted evenhandedly. "He has that right." "Why did we come all this way! Why didn't you say some- thing down on the planet!" "I entertained the hope that you might be able to convince him." Setting aside annoyance at being used, Stiles argued, 'øThe Romulans are attacking the Federation for something we didn't do!" Spock offered only a nod in limited agreement. "I will not force any individual to act against his will." "Even if it means a war?" "If that is the price of freedom... so be it."

 

 

"They're almost in phaser range," Jeremy White reported, a thread of fright rising in his voice.

 

 

Stiles didn't blame him a bit. The sight of that dark ship with the white buttons all over it streaking toward them with the posture of an angry bumblebee it scared him too.

 

 

"Jeremy" he ordered, "tell me the two biggest differences between us and them." With something specific to do, Jeremy concentrated on his instruments while everyone else waited through the tension.

 

 

"Their weapons..." No surprise there.

 

 

"And shields. Way better than ours" Unsatisfied with the lack of specificity, Spook leaned over Jeremy's shoulder at the readouts. "High-intensity plasma-fed shielding with direct warp feed. At least four times the power of ours. I must assume their speed capacity and weapons are comparably advanced." Stiles leered at him. "Situation hopeless?" "So it seems," Spock said.

 

 

"All the odds against us?" "Correct." Stiles eyed him. "This is one of those 'leap of creativity' things, isn't it.'?" Spock clasped his hands behind his back in a ridiculously casual posture. "That is my hope." "You wanna just... come over here and give me a shove.'?" "If you prefer" From the port side, McCoy offered, "I'll come and push you if you want." Stiles gave him a floppy wave with his free hand. "Thanks, Doctor, consider me pushed. We need to even things up.

 

 

Shields first." "How7" Spock asked.

 

 

At the same time, McCoy beefed, "Rhodinium against tissue paper!" Stiles glanced at them. "Oh, we're a little tougher than that, Doctor. Jeremy, we've got that warp trigger box with the surg- er for emergency ignition of cold warp cores, don't we? We replaced the last one, right?" "Always." "Go back there and take it off the clamps and put it in the airlock, activated. We're going to dump and detonate." "It'll short out our shields !" "If we're close enough it'll short out his too. He wants us alive--let's use that and play some chicken." Flushed, Jeremy raced through the hatch toward the aft sec- tion.

 

 

"Ambassador" Stiles requested, "I'll bet you can take the science boards, can't you?" "Most certainly I can." Spock moved with fluidity across the bridge and settled at Jeremy's station as if he'd been painted there. Darned if he didn't look happy.

 

 

"Travis, fire up the magnetic grapples. Two and four on the port side."

 

 

Travis swung full about and gaped at him with his mouth open and eyes like eggs, but talked himself out of asking. "Aye aye," he responded, and got to work.

 

 

Stiles stood beside his command chair and watched the screen that showed the approaching blue tighter. "Ready about !" "Ready about, aye!" A flurry of activity blew across the bridge, and everybody was suddenly working. Luckily they'd stopped asking what he was up to. Good thing, because he didn't know.

 

 

"Helm, you know what to do. Come about and meet him head on, as if we were rafting for a repair." "While he's moving?" Jason Bolt confirmed.

 

 

"Just as if we had to grapple a damaged ship under power.

 

 

Do it by the numbers. We'U see what happens. Helm over." "Coming about." "Then what?" Travis asked--not in challenge, but because to make it work he had to know the next move.

 

 

Stiles shook his head and shrugged. "Oh, I dunno, I'm prob- ably about to get us all killed." Okay, not the greatest slogan to stitch on a banner of war, but there was something to be said for being honest with them. He drew one long breath and held it, watching the forward screen now as the CST mined on its midships keel and the constella- tion fighter came around. Broad on the bow... three points. two points... one... fine on the port bow... dead ahead.

 

 

Now the two ships were heading at each other in a game that would destroy one of them if somebody didn't flinch.

 

 

"Incoming!" Travis called. "They're shooting at us!" A bright white blast blew from the other ship, looking as if somebody had fired talcum powder out an exhaust port--but when it hit them it didn't feel like powder. The CST shuddered violently but did not turn off her course. Rather than striking them with a single impact, the powder-beam slathered all over the ship as if they'd plunged into a glass of milk, washing along from the prow to midships before dissipating, snapping systems all the way back.

 

 

"Hold course!" Stiles called over the shattering of circuits all around them.

 

 

"Intentions?" Spock asked. "Do you mean to ram them?" "We've got an asteroid-cutter prow" Stiles told him. "If they want to try it, I'm game. We can't outrun them. All we can do is make them flinch." Spock straightened from watching the science panel. "Do you know this man well enough to predict his response?" "Orsova? Sir, we're willing to die for a cause. Orsova isn't.

 

 

All we have to do is stand him down." "Yes, Mr. Stiles, but remember--Orsova has little or no spacefaring experience. It's unlikely he's piloting that ship." Stiles looked at him. "Who do you think is?" "I should say whoever provided him with the tighter." "Oh, good, I love unknown quantities." Annoyed with himself for not realizing that Orsova couldn't possibly be driving that ship, that he was in fact fighting some- body he'd never met in a ship he didn't recognize, with weapons he'd never seen before, Stiles dealt with a tumbling stomach and a dry mouth as the ships drew speedily closer.

 

 

He struck the nearest comm link. "Jeremy, blow that trigger out the hatch right now." "Ready... it's away!" They waited as the octagonal warp trigger box drifted out into space, visible on a side monitor at starboard, floating lazi- ly out there, brainless to what else was going on.

 

 

"Distance?" "Eight hundred kilometers," Spock ticked off. "One thou- sand... twelve hundred..." "Ignite it." Before his words were even out, space at their side blew bright with disruption and the whole ship was swept sideways away from it. Half the crew was thrown down. Stiles kept his feet only by hanging onto the command chair with both hands.

 

 

He found himself looking at Dr. McCoy and thanking all the lucky stars out there that the old doctor had been sitting down.

 

 

Travis was also holding McCoy in place with one hand, him- self with the other.

 

 

Over the crackle and fume of their own damage, Spock reported, "His shields are losing integrity. They're flickering." "Ours are down completely" Travis announced, taking the gloss off their victory. "Whatever happens now, we'll feel it hard." "Enemy vessel is slowing down," Spock announced briskly.

 

 

There was a clear ring of win in his voice. "You've called their bluff" "Either that or they're not willing to die for whatever we represent to them," Stiles said. "Doesn't mean they won't keep trying to kill us." "Incoming!" Stiles gritted his teeth as they rode out another hit of the powder-beam. Damage reports came chattering in from all sec- tions, none of them good. Stiles ignored them.

 

 

"Travis, are the grapples ready?" "Ready, aye." "Keep up speed until we're at proximity range. Let me know when we get there--" "We're there!" Travis said. "We can reach now." On the main screen, the dark blue enemy ship drew up its braking thrusters and surged upward so they could see its underbelly, just as a rowboat surges up on a swell before set- tling into the sand. They really didn't want to get hit by the Saskatoon's cutting prow.

 

 

Stiles couldn't help a little snicker. "Magnetic grapples two and four--launch!" wheeeeeeeeeeeCHUNK--CHUNK "Got 'era!" Travis yelped. "Both grapples are on their hull.

 

 

Now what?" "Let you know soon as I think of it" Stiles muttered. "He can't blow us up if we're riding him. Pull up as close as you can, Travis. Zack, heat up the welding phasers?

 

 

"Where do you want me to cut him?" "Any place you can reach. I want you to connect those white dots into my initials. Right there where I can see." The Bolt brothers both laughed in spite of the moment's heat.

 

 

Heat--yes, it was getting hotter on the bridge, proof that systems were damaged and the ship's computers were selec- tively saving what they could and sacrificing what they couldn't while waiting for repair. The CST's welding phasers lit up under the viewscreen and scored the blue body of the other ship, leaving trails of white-hot melted metal and snap- ping circuits exposed to open space. Still... how much of this could they do?

 

 

As the two ships danced in their locked-together waltz, Spock peered into his monitor. "Reading a power buildup." "Weapons?" Stiles asked.

 

 

"No, sir. Routing shield power, I believe...." He didn't sound sure at all.

 

 

Heavy-legged with damage and with the weight of the other ship pulling on the ~apples, the Saskatoon lumbered around, pushed by the pointless power of the two ships exerting force on each other while going absolutely nowhere.

 

 

"Jeremy, can you still hear me?" Stiles called.

 

 

"You're breaking up. Boost your signal." "Forget it." Stiles stalked to the aft hatch, cranked the han- dle, yanked the hatch open, and yelled through the body of the ship. 'q'um on the external hoses! Seal up their impulse ports!

 

 

Got it?" "I like that !" Stiles turned back to the main action, grumbling. "Yeah, I like it too." Within seconds, the CST's external hoses clacked on. Clear on the main screen, attached to them so closely that they could're touched it if the screen hadn't been there, the blue enemy ship cranked and yanked against the magnetic grapples, trying to break the hold. Now tons of semiviscous compound spewed from the hose nozzles and splattered all over the aft section of that ship, totally clogging the impulse exhausts as if the gods were spewing milkshakes into goblets.

 

 

Except this wonderful composite milkshake stuck like glue and hardened chemically within four seconds of contact.

 

 

"What's that stuff?." McCoy asked.

 

 

"It's chemical fiber bond," Stiles told him. "We use it to coat repairs before putting the hull plates back on. Nasty stuff." "Their impulse ports are clogged," Spock noted. "They're attempting to fire impulse engines anyway." On the screen, in the upper comer, they could just see the impulse ports turning yellow, orange, then red with backed-up energy. Volcanic spurts of power blasted through the fiber bond, only to be almost instantly sealed up again. Another kind of battle was going on--between the power of the engines and the strength of a resealing compound that wouldn't take no for an answer.

 

 

Flash... flash... sizzle... flash... The constellation ship fought with itself, spitting and surging, taking the CST with it on every blurting ride.

 

 

The whole CST then began to shake furiously, as if it would break into a billion pieces around them. The sound was horri- ble, terrifying, the kind of sound that made Stiles wonder what the hell he was doing here in the first place, why anybody would want to come to space when he could stay on a nice solid planet somewhere. Suddenly all the screens flashed a nasty yellow light. A snap of electrical surge ftailed through the ship, popping everybody's ears. "What happened!" Stiles called.

 

 

"Feedback along the magnetic lines!" Spock called back.

 

 

"They've thrown us off--power surge is running up the grap- ples!" "Damn !" "What do we do now?" Travis cried. "Surrender?" "Not since Gabriel's last tea party in hell! Full about! Make some speed!" McCoy tingemailed Spock in the arm and pointed at Stiles.

 

 

"I like the sound of that, don't you?" Still spitting fire every few seconds as the impulse engines coughed through the clinging fiber bond, the enemy ship wheeled clumsily around to face them with its main weapons ports.

 

 

"Uh-oh..." Stiles' whole body went cold. "Doesn't look like they want to take us alive anymore.... " Spock straightened and watched the ship out there. "Your logic is impeccable... we are in grave danger." His memory nerve tingling, Stiles looked at him. "What?" "Just a bit of nostalgia. I suggest we distance ourselves." "Travis, disengage! Jason, full impulse!" At point-blank range the other ship opened up on them in what could only be described as a fit of anger. Its weapons cut into the CST's unshielded body, blowing systems all around the bridge and all the way through the ship. Stiles agonized as he heard the screams and shouts of his men and knew they would have to see to themselves for now. He hated that--the urge to go back there nearly crushed his chest.

 

 

"Speed, Jason," he implored.

 

 

"Doing my best." "Reading power-up on torpedo launchers," Spock warned.

 

 

"We cannot possibly gain enough distance." No distance and no shields. No weapons worth spitting back at that ship. Stiles felt his heart sink. He'd bought time, but there was nothing more to do with it. He'd stopped them from maneuvering in space-normal, but the CST couldn't get away fast enough to take advantage.

 

 

"Shoot," he ordered. "Fire at will, whatever we can throw at them. At least we'll go out shooting." The CST's internal systems crackled and complained. His men fired what little working phasers they had left. But they weren't a starship--what could they do? Go over there and rebuild the enemy to death?

 

 

As Stiles watched the enemy ship on the screen, pursuing them in fits and bursts with those clogged impulse tubes, he knew that despite its falling behind they couldn't possibly out- run its firepower.

 

 

The whole main screen and two lateral ones--the two still working--blasted bright white with incendiary drama. Stiles crimped his eyes, but refused to close them. He wasn't going to die with his eyes closed.

 

 

Then he didn't die--couldn't even do that right.

 

 

"Romulan bird-of-prey on our starboard stem!" Travis called, horrified. "It's fired on that blue ship! It's driving them off!" Spock bent over the science station. "Confirmed. Romulan standard warbird... in battle mode." "Now what?" Zack cranked around. "Fire on that one too?" "No!" McCoy rasped.

 

 

"Don't shoot!" Stiles countered at the same time. "Give me ship to ship!" "You've got ship to ship." Stiles leaned over the arm of his command chair's comm.

 

 

"Dr, Crusher, I assume that's you inside that ugly thing." "It's me, Commander. Everyone all right? Mission accom- plished, I hope?" "Accomplished so far, Doctor" He blinked at the bronze war wing hovering on their flank. "Ugly or not, I'm glad to see that big-eyed bug !" "It worked." Spock's announcement was reserved, but victo- rious. "Enemy is moving off at emergency warp one on a retreat vector." "They're moving off, Commander Stiles. What do you rec- ommend we do? Chase them down?" Stiles sucked a long breath and heaved it out with a shudder.

 

 

"No, no, don't chase them. Let them go, Doctor. And... stand by." "Standing by," Crusher acknowledged.

 

 

"Do they show any signs of turning back?" he asked his own crew.

 

 

"None," Spock congratulated.

 

 

Jason's hands shook on his controls. "Think we beat 'era !" Looking around the deck, Stiles had a hard time believing they'd beaten anybody at all, considering all the wreckage and mess and sparking components. He hadn't even noticed the parts and pieces blowing around him and now cluttering the deck. But the rush of victory was undeniable on the bruised faces of his crew.

 

 

"What's that whine?" somebody asked.

 

 

"What whine?" Stiles wasn't even sure who asked, and didn't hear anything at first. Then he did.

 

 

"Transporter? Spock called over the noise that suddenly filled the bridge.

 

 

They pressed back, not knowing what was happening until a band of energy crackled into formation in front of the helm and coalesced into humanoid shape. As they stared in amaze- ment, the sparkling form hardened into Orsova.

 

 

Stiles opened his mouth to shout an order, but Orsova was already moving, leaping like an attacking lion at Zevon. Stiles didn't see a weapon until the last second before Orsova and

 

 

Zevon's bodies collided. A flash of metal, as if he were watch- ing a scene from a swashbuckling movie--unmistakably a blade.

 

 

For just a flash this made no sense--why would Orsova, who had at his disposal every weapon on a whole planet, use a blade?

 

 

Sykora cried out some unintelligible protest, but Spock and Travis managed to hold her back. Zack and Jeremy sprang from their posts, dove forward over the helm and snatched at Orsova's clothing. It took both of them to pry him off Zevon.

 

 

By then, Stiles was there.

 

 

"Hold him back!" he shouted. He clutched Orsova's left wrist and the metal weapon in it--some kind of spike, pol- ished to a silk finish, with a wooden handle like an ice pick.

 

 

It's silver surface was spackled with Zevon's blood.

 

 

As Jason Bolt joined the effort to hold Orsova, Stiles handed the weapon to Travis and rushed to Zevon. He grasped Zevon by both arms and held him up. Was he hurt? Was he dying?

 

 

"Zevon?" Stiles held him and looked for a wound. He found it under Zevon's right hand, pressed to his left side. Pulling Zevon's hand away, Stiles cajoled, "Let me look, let me look." As Zevon stiflened in pain against him, he found the entry wound, and blessedly an exit.

 

 

"It's just a flesh wound, I think." Weakened by relief, he grinned at Zevon. "You just got a good poke!" Fighting the shock of having been stabbed, seriously or not, Zevon winced and nodded but couldn't manage to let go of Stiles just yet.

 

 

Stiles had other ideas. He twisted around and glared at Orsova. "You missed, you filthy ox!" Orsova slammed an elbow into Jason Bolt and smacked Zack in the face, driving him back. After that, though, he didn't attack anybody, instead crossing to the port panel where the long-range scanner was showing a clear picture of the con- stellation ship getting smaller and smaller as it ran.

 

 

"Voice! Voice, save me!" he cried. "Beam me away, Voice! I did what you wanted! Where are you! Come for me! Voice!" But nobody came to rescue him.

 

 

"Pathetic," Stiles commented.

 

 

Apparently just now realizing he was in deep trouble, Orso- va cranked around and glared as if trapped in a box. He could do nothing as Stiles closed on him, pressed his fingers into the flesh at Orsova's throat, backed him tight up against the port- side scanner panel. "I was afraid of you? You're just a quiver- ing little coward when you're standing alone, aren't you?" "You better not hurt me!" Orsova pressed backward against the panel. "The Voice is coming back for me!" "Not soon enough." Letting loose a dozen years of frustra- tion-and even anger at himself, that he'd been haunted for a third of his life by the face now crimping before him Stiles bent Orsova back over the panel until he could push no more.

 

 

Orsova choked and gagged as Stiles's knuckles kneaded into his throat.

 

 

As Orsova's face flushed from copper to almost beet red with strain, quite abruptly, even absurdly, the satisfaction meter began to fall. Stiles glared into the hated face, saw the panic and desperation, and snarled as if looking into a garbage pit.

 

 

But he stopped pushing. He even let go a little.

 

 

"Damn," he uttered. "You're just a toothache! You're not even worth hitting!" To the obvious amazement of everybody around him, he pulled Orsova back to his feet and let him reel.

 

 

Stiles found himself strangely amused and pleased at Orso- va's pitiful display. Over there, Travis was smiling at him in some kind of ironic pride. That felt good.

 

 

Shaking his head, he leaned one hip against the helm and commented, "At least I was worth beating up!" His crewmen rewarded him with a laugh and a round of applause that made him feel like--well, like royalty.

 

 

"Just stay there, you puscup;' he said to Orsova. "You're as imprisoned as I was. Dr. McCoy, would you have a look at Zevon, please? Zack, escort the doctor around the other side of the helm, away from this mulchy moron." Playing out his win, he freely turned his back on Orsova as if his former guard were hardly more than a bug on the wall.

 

 

For the fast time, he turned his back on his greatest fear, the ghost of all his nights, and completely dismissed him.

 

 

He turned instead to Zevon, as Dr. McCoy probed the Romulan's wound. "How is he?" "Superficial," the elderly doctor confirmed. "Hardly raising a welt. Punched through the skin, scored the intestines--no ruptures, though. Let me have a better look...." He drew around his medical tricorder and a scanner and started taking readings.

 

 

"All right, Zevon," Stiles began firmly, "you can have what you want. In fact, you can have more than you want. I'm going to take you back to that stupid planet and dump you there with your wife, just like you want. And then I'm coming back into space and demonstrate to you exactly what a Federation prom- ise means." Leaning forward with theatrical flair, he an- nounced, "I'm going to build your barricade." "You, yourself?." Zevon challenged.

 

 

From the other side of the bridge, Sykora gasped, "Zevon, can he do it?" "NOV' Her husband flinched as McCoy scanned him. "He certainly cannot possibly do it. The barricade needs raw mate- rials, infrastructure, parts, support--.Federation interest will fade before the barricade is built." "It*s not going to fade," Stiles boasted. "I won't let it." Zevon gazed at him in something like disappointment. "And you have so much influence, Eric?" "I don't need influence. I have a CST" Stiles swept his hand wide to illustrate the ship around him, and the suddenly proud crew. "We can build it. A combat support tender is a movable starbase, a flying factory!" "Of course!" Spock breathed. Even he hadn't thought of it, and that gave Stiles a particular zing of pleasure.

 

 

"Impossible," Zevon argued. He pointed at Spock, but spoke to Stiles. "You're saying this to get what he wants, because you worship him!" A rumble of frustration rose in Stiles throat. Better let that one go. "My crew is packed with trained technicians, mechanics, and engineers. We can build almost anything, darned near anywhere, all by ourselves. And even though you're refusing to help us, we're going to go back there and build it."

 

 

Zevon squinted with doubt. "But we have no treaty!

 

 

Starfleet will not give you permission--" "I don't need permission," Stiles recklessly sparked. "I'm not even going to ask for it. And on top of that, I'm going to use a few other resources available to me right here and now.

 

 

For instance, Dr. McCoy over there is going to treat whatever's making your wife sick. 1 don't have to let him do that, y'see, because I'm in command here and he has to do what 1 say. But I'm going to tell him to do that anyway, Zevon, because not everything in life is a tradeoff. And then we're going to fly away and leave you alone with your planet and your wife and your barricade, and we'll see if you can forget who did for you what you couldn't do for yourselves." He jabbed Zevon in the arm. "You and everybody on that stupid planet are going to find out what real freedom means." Across the bridge, Ambassador Spock settled back against the science station and looped his arms into that casual appre- ciative fold that Stiles had seen so many times on the historical tapes. Stiles got a rush of delight at seeing Spock fold his arms like that, right here on Stiles's bridge, just as if he liked being here.

 

 

Astonished, Zevon could do notlfing but stare at him with a thousand emotions pushing at him. Stiles did not turn away from that gaze, determined to show that nothing would stop him from doing what he said he could do, exercising both the power of his command and the industrial might of his ship.

 

 

Dr. McCoy looked up then, and clicked off his medical tri- corder. His face was stiff, his voice rough.

 

 

"He's not going to find out any time soon. There must're been something on the spike." He looked first at Stiles, then at Spock. "It's all over, gentlemen. He's infected."

 

 

Chapter Twenty-five

 

 

McCoY's WORDS SHOOK STILES to the bone. Spock too, he could tell, was inexpressibly disturbed. Only seeing the worry on his ido!'s face caused Stiles to finally absorb just how rare Zevon's uncontaminated blood had been to them all. What would come now? Decades of instability in the galaxy? The suction of a collapsing empire on the Federation's doorstep?

 

 

Endless struggles and endless repairs, so ships and crews could go back into more endless struggles?

 

 

"Call Dr. Crusher to beam over here," McCoy tersely said.

 

 

"I want a corroborating opinion. Not that it'll change a god- damn thing...." Wordless, his throat too tight to make a sound, Stiles nodded the order over to Travis, who spoke into his comm. "Dr.

 

 

Crusher, would you beam over please? Dr. McCoy's request." "Acknowledged. One moment." The bridge fell to silence. Except for the snapping of electri- cal systems that had been violated, there was hardly a sound.

 

 

The squawk of the transporter beam sent a ripple up every spine. Soon Dr. Beverly Crusher stood right there on the bridge, providing a mere haze of hope. But nobody here doubt- ed Leonard McCoy's diagnosis, not for a moment.

 

 

The elegant lady doctor looked around, noted everybody, including the only two Romulans, hesitated briefly over Syko- ra, then silently concluded that Zevon was the only one who could be the person they'd come here for.

 

 

"I think we're too late," McCoy told her in a funereal tone.

 

 

"Doublecheck me, will you?" Crusher kept control over her expression, connect- ing momentarily with Spock as she stepped across the bridge to Zevon and ran her reed scanner over him. Then she brought up her own tricorder and compared notes with what- ever she had collected while she was gone in Romulan space.

 

 

Stiles watched her, worried. Over the doctor's shoulder, Zevon's fearful eyes met his. He stepped to Zevon's side, as if he'd never left, as if his presence alone could protect Zevon from the scourge that was apparently inevitable.

 

 

Dr. Crusher shook her head. "It's spreading fast. In forty or fifty seconds, he'll be completely contmninated. How did this happen out here in the middle of nowhere?" "Hah!" On the other side of the bridge, Orsova bellowed with joy. "You see? You lose! Your civilization will fall apart now! The Voice is coming! You lose now! You can't hurt me now! I'm going to be governor of the sector! I won!

 

 

I won!" As retorts reeled in his head, Stiles turned toward his old tormenter. Never got the chance, though.

 

 

Sykora, until now still fazed by the effects of the stun, came very sharply and dangerously to life. She shoved Travis harsh- ly off his balance and snatched the bloody spike from his hand.

 

 

As if shot from a cannon, she streaked to Orsova. Before any- one could think of stopping her, she drove the spike through Orsova's neck with a disgusting pop and a faint crunch of shat- tered bone.

 

 

At Stiles's side, Zevon gasped and jolted with shock, but made no move toward his wife. She was an imperial subcom- mander, after all.

 

 

Orsova gurgled as frothy blood welled up into his mouth and he clasped at his demolished throat with both hands, blinked in surprise, then couldn't suck another breath. No one offered to cushion his collapse onto the deck. There, in a pud- dle of his own fluids, he died. Just like that. Over.

 

 

And Stiles was glad. And he didn't feel ashamed of it either.

 

 

He promised himself he never would. There were more appro- priate things in the galaxy to feel bad about.

 

 

Even the sight of Orsova bleeding on the deck couldn't raise the pall that suddenly descended on the bridge. They'd failed.

 

 

After all this.

 

 

Dr. Crusher huffed in frustration. "He's right. He won. We don't have any more alternatives for this mutant doomsday virus. We can't even get the empress back to her home in time for her to die in her own bed." Angry, she stuffed her med scanner back in its case and looked snappishly at Dr. McCoy.

 

 

"Unless you've got a rabbit to pull out of your hat, we're skunked." "What do you take me for?" McCoy spread his amls and crowed, "I'm going to stop this venom campaign if it's the last thing I do--and at the age of a hundred and thirty-odd, every- thing I do could be the last thing I do." "You've got something?" Spock stepped to him. "Another uninfected royal family member?" Invigorated, Stiles pointed at Sykora and blurted, "It's her, isn't it? I should've known! It's got to be her! Did he marry his own cousin or something?" "No, he didn't," McCoy denied. "I told you the truth. She's got no royal family blood at all. Not even close. She's peasant stock if I ever saw it. Couldn't be infected if she took a bath in that toxin. But I've got something even better." He looked at Crusher with a winning expression. "You know what they say... fetal-cord blood is about twenty times more potent than the ordinary vein stuff. I won't even have to wake the lit- tle fella up." Suddenly the center of attention, Sykora eyed the doctors, then her husband, then Stiles. "What does he mean?" "You're pregnant, that's what!" McCoy announced.

 

 

"You knew?" Stiles accused McCoy as both Sykora and Zevon gawked in undeniable surprise. "You knew that and you still let Zevon be a target for assassination? A decoy?" "Well, of course!" The elderly doctor nodded proudly.

 

 

"After the first eight or nine decades, you learn to keep your mouth shut. Now, I know what you should name him, y'see.

 

 

You've got to pick something flashy and unique. Leonard James Eric Spock Beverly Saskatoon the First. He'll be the only one of his kind. You won't regret it. Wanna see it written down? Hey, kid, got a pen?"

 

 

Epilogue

 

 

THE CRAMPED LITTLE SICKBAY on board the Saskatoon had never seen so much fame. Over a matter of a couple of days, the midsection of a combat support tender had become the center of the universe. Starfleet's Lord High Oracle Leonard Mceoy and its state-of-the-art shamanness Beverly Crusher were collaborating with every medical facility within comm range. The first several attempts at synthesizing a serum failed, but only by tiny fractions. Gradually the fractions became smaller, and hope swelled.

 

 

Busy as he was with construction, Stiles broke away from his crew on the evening of the second day, and with an admit- ted rush of nerves went to check on Zevon's progress.

 

 

Zevon lay on the portable diagnostic couch that McCoy had ordered brought in. He was clearly in some pain from whatev- er treatments the doctors were giving him. Sykora was at his side. She hadn't been able to leave the chamber all this time.

 

 

After all, she was the center of the center of the universe.

 

 

In the small sickbay, Dr. Crusher was bending over a cache of tubes, vials, beakers, microprocessors, and analytical equip- ment they'd had shipped in. Engrossed in her work, she didn't even look up when Stiles came in.

 

 

McCoy hovered nearby, peering at a colored liquid in a test tube.

 

 

Stiles felt he was interrupting something private as he crone to Zevon's side, opposite Sykora, and fielded the obstinate woman's glare, still loaded with suspicion. Oh, well, couldn't win everything at once.

 

 

Pressing a hand to Zevon's shoulder, he gained his old friend's attention through the blur of pain.

 

 

"Hey, lightfoot," he greeted. "You all right?" "Oh, Eric," Zevon moaned. "I think I would rather get the plague and die than deal with the cure.... " A smile of empathy broke on Stiles's face. "No, no, you've got your orders. Get better or face the consequences. You don't want the vindictive captain to find out." "If only... he were vindictive enough to... put me out of this misery...." "Not much longer," McCoy said. "Don't make me break out my hip-pocket psychiatry, boy. I'm whuppin' a dragon here." Even through his discomfort, Zevon managed a smile. Stiles tightened his grip in silent reassurance.

 

 

He tried to come up with something more to say but was rescued when Ambassador Spock stepped in over the hatch coaming.

 

 

"Mr. Stiles, I thought you might be here," Spock said with not particularly well-veiled contentment.

 

 

Stiles instantly saw the undercurrent of success and asked, "How does it look, sir?" His face expressive in defiance of legend--Spock spoke almost merrily. "Looks quite well. Your defiant declaration has stirred the resting spirits at Starfleet Command." "They're not going to challenge me or throw me in a brig or anything?" "Hardly. The admiralty has a longstanding policy, albeit unspoken, of backing up their captains' flares of caprice.

 

 

Admiral Douglas Prothero has offered the Zebra-Tango Divi- sion of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers and the services of the Industrial Trawler True North to assist the Saskatoon in build- ing the spaceborne Constrictor barricade. Within a matter of months, the waves will go from deadly to harmless." He turned to Zevon and Sykora, amicably adding, "Your planet will final- ly be safe." Battling a rush of deep emotion, Zevon gripped Sykora's hand and took a few moments to gather himself. "I will go before the Pojjana people" he offered, "and convince them of the Federation's integrity. I can do that... they will believe me." "Such a collaboration" Spock said, "will give Starfleet the leverage to stabilize the sector and declare it ~een." With both admiration and suspicion, Stiles quipped, "But you didn't have anything to do with that, I'll bet." "Nothing at all;' Spock loftily claimed.

 

 

Stiles grinned. "Thanks." "You're very welcome. And how is construction going?" "Oh, we've had to modify Zevon's diagrams a few times.

 

 

Luckily, we're an innovative pack of wolves. Sir, might I say a few things? They're kind of... personal." Spock seemed a little surprised. "Would you like to speak in private?" "No, I'm not embarrassed anymore. I just wanted to thank you, for everything, past and present. You had faith in me that I didn't have in myself. I'll believe in myself as I am, as I can be--not as my father or my ~andfather or Starfleet thought I should be. I'll believe in the Federation, as long as people like you are speaking for it. And I'll never forget something else you taught me. Probably the most important thing." Spock's dark eyes glowed. It seemed he knew. But he asked anyway. "What would that be?" As he gazed at his friends both new and old, Stiles absorbed the value of this moment and swore to himseft that he would never forget.

 

 

"Freedom is never free," he said.

 

 

The End