Four

Enterprise was the ship’s name, painted in ridiculously large letters on the primary-hull surface alongside a group of numbers that represented some further kind of identification specific to the species homeworld, a Minshara-class planet on the outer rim of the quadrant called Earth. That name had rung some kind of bell with Sen, and after perusing the records Roia had found for him, detailing the Confederacy’s previous encounters with the species, he realized that he himself had, years ago, been involved in several transactions with them. Said transactions had occurred on some of the more remote bazaars, Karrus Prime, Prex Morianna, X-17, none of which had made any sort of lasting impression on Sen, probably because none had been especially profitable. Worth more attention were Enterprise’s recent whereabouts, in particular an extended trip into the D-4853 anomaly, referred to in several databases by the unlikely name of the Expanse, as well as (and here Sen took special notice) its involvement in the ongoing Vulcan-Andorian conflict, which indicated to the governor that despite their relative youth as a species and lack of technical sophistication, these humans, as they referred to themselves, bore watching.

Jonathan Archer was the captain’s name, and that too rang some kind of bell with the governor, but there was nothing beyond that name in the primary database. Sen had Roia forward the query to some of the more specialized information brokers, and then sat back at his desk.

The humans had still not responded to his signal.

“Roia,” he said, and the voice-or, rather, what his brain perceived as a voice, thanks to the simulation program-came back immediately through the implant:

Governor.

“They are receiving us?”

Undoubtedly, sir.

“They have a reason for not responding, then.” Sen wondered what it was; most likely, they were busy searching their own databases for information on the Confederacy. Just taking them longer, he thought, and no wonder. Humans had nothing like Roia; at their current rate of technological development, it would take them a good hundred years to build something similar.

Roia was a software agent Sen had designed for his use on becoming viceroy of the Coreida Sector. The agent was named after a female who had never, ever done as he requested, and so it gave Sen particular pleasure to be able to have this avatar, which he’d given the voice of that same female, at his constant beck and call. Childish behavior, he knew, but then Sen had a problem when it came to people who refused to do as he said. He wanted to grind them into dust.

“Let’s send a second transmission, Roia. Open channel.”

Open.

“Enterprise, this is Governor Maxim Sen of the Thelasian Trading Confederacy. Repeating our previous message-we have fixed your position, estimate your course parallels that of a vessel similar to those that have attacked ships traveling this sector of space. Be advised you exercise extreme caution in any encounters with said vessel, also ask that you forward any records of said encounters to Procyron for analysis and collation. Please respond Enterprise. Message ends. Loop that, Roia. Continuous signal till they do respond.”

Yes, sir. A reminder, sir, the Defense Council is awaiting your presence in the Upper Solarium.

“Of course.” The weekly meeting. Normally he hated this part of his job-meeting with the military commanders, most of them mercenaries hired to protect shipping routes, with little loyalty to the traders who paid them-but he had been pleasantly surprised by the speed and efficiency of their response to this crisis. They had not only set up convoys to escort the most valuable shipments through the areas of space in question, but today were proposing a further refinement of the armed offensive they had presented to Sen last week. An offensive that would involve not just Confederacy ships, but vessels from over a dozen other worlds that had been affected by the unwarranted, unprovoked attacks on Confederacy trade routes. Representatives of those worlds were in the Solarium now as well, making Sen’s own presence there necessary.

But there were things he had to do first.

He had Roia instruct the steward to prepare his lunch and bring it to the meeting room, estimating his arrival there in nine minutes. Then he had her cause a short in the automated system feed, which disabled the government recording systems, thus providing complete and total anonymity to his actions. He quickly reviewed the status of his personal accounts and then shifted funds into those accounts from several trading consortiums he’d set up under the authority of the governorship. Wholly legal consortiums.

Wholly illegal transactions.

He was seconds away from completing his work when the implant sounded.

Governor.

“Roia.”

Enterprise is responding.

Sen thought a moment. Talk to the humans first, he decided. That would be brief, and perhaps germane to the Council meeting. “Tell the Defense Council they’ll need to wait-five to seven additional minutes. Is my lunch ready?”

Yes, sir.

“Have it brought here.” Sen finished transferring the money-now his money-and had Roia bring the systems feed back on-line. There would be a gap in the records, but he’d already had Roia circumvent the security protocol so it would never be noticed. Not until it was too late to matter, at least.

“Open a channel to Enterprise.”

Open. Visual and audio are available.

“Give me both.” Sen enlarged the viewer, and positioned his chair so that Enterprise’s captain would see not just him, not just the governor’s office, but the whole of Tura Prex’s skyline behind him. The scale of the megalopolis, the sophistication and beauty of the construction. It would impress upon the humans their relative unimportance in the scheme of things.

The viewer activated. The bridge of a spaceship appeared. Several figures were visible, some sitting, some standing. Humans. Now he remembered the race. Bipedal, large eyes, very expressive faces…

There was a Vulcan too. A female. Interesting.

Sen’s eyes lingered on her a moment, then were drawn to one of the humans-a male standing in the center of the bridge. The captain, undoubtedly. Captain Archer.

He was young, Sen saw. Very, very young. Just like the race. Young, most likely immature, and most certainly at a disadvantage in interactions with any older, more sophisticated species.

A thin smile crossed the governor’s lips, and then he spoke.

“Captain Archer, I presume?”

One thing Travis hadn’t mentioned about Governor Sen.

The man looked like death warmed over. Actually, “warmed over” was not the right term. The right term was just the one word “death.” Governor Sen looked like death. His face was the face of an Egyptian mummy-wrinkled, shriveled, ancient. And, incongruously enough, smiling.

Never judge a book by its cover, Archer thought, forcing himself to return Sen’s smile.

“And you must be Governor Sen. I am Jonathan Archer of Enterprise-and thank you for your warning, sir. Though I’m afraid we may have already encountered one of the ships your messages spoke of.” The captain went on to briefly relate their experiences of the last few days.

“You’re lucky to have escaped unscathed, Captain. The attacks are often quite deadly. There have been numerous fatalities over the past year.”

“No idea who they are?”

“No.”

“Or the reason for the attacks?”

“They are clearly attempting to establish territorial boundaries,” Sen said. “The territory in question, however, is largely Thelasian, or has been established by treaty as neutral space.”

“I see,” Archer said, making a mental note to have T’Pol brief him a little more thoroughly on races with any sort of territorial interest in this sector. Not that he didn’t trust Sen, but given what Travis had told him about the man…

Well, he didn’t entirely trust Sen.

“I would appreciate you forwarding on specifics of your encounter with this ship,” Sen said. “We can take your raw sensor data.”

Archer was about to agree to the governor’s request when he realized that the raw sensor data would not only provide Sen with the information he was asking for, but would also give him a fairly good idea of Enterprise’s sensor capabilities. And the ship’s maneuverability. Their standard defense postures. Maybe he was being paranoid, but that was not information he wanted to share at the moment.

“We’ll put together a report for you,” the captain said.

“Thank you.” Sen’s smile remained frozen in place. He seemed genuinely pleased.

It’d be hell sitting across from this guy at a poker table, Archer thought.

“As I mentioned in our message, Captain, we are currently planning an offensive against this species, designed to eliminate any future attacks. Representatives from several races in this sector and surrounding ones are meeting on Procyron now to finalize those plans. Meanwhile, I want to assure your species, and any others aboard your ship”- at this Sen’s eyes went briefly to T’Pol- “that the trade routes are open and safe, and will remain open and safe.”

Archer frowned. “That’s important of course, Governor, and I may be speaking out of turn here, but talk of any sort of major offensive seems a little… premature to me.”

“How so?”

“These aliens, whoever they were, were nowhere near as interested in hurting us as they were in defending their territory. They had several…”

“It is not their territory,” Sen interrupted.

“Of course. Excuse me. What they perceived as their territory. I was just going to say that they had several chances to damage our ship, and were quite careful not to.”

“There have been encounters similar to yours,” Sen said. “But there have also been, as I said, other, far more destructive incidents. My belief is that the nature of the encounters are shaped by the individual commanders aboard these ships. Their temperament.”

“As well as the temperament-and actions-of the vessels they encounter, I would think,” Archer said.

Sen eyed him suspiciously.

“You seem to be trying to defend this species, Captain. Is there a reason for that?”

“No. Not trying to defend. To understand. Which reminds me-we also received a signal from this vessel,” Archer said. “A repeating message we were unable to translate. We’ll include that in our report as well.”

“It’s undoubtedly the same message sent in previous encounters. We have, as of yet, been unable to translate it either.”

“It seems to me that should be your first priority, Governor. Establishing communications so that you can determine what it is these aliens want.”

The smile remained frozen on Sen’s face, but this time something in his eyes changed. Archer decided then that not only would he not want to play poker with the governor, he would not like to have him as an enemy. That something in Sen’s eyes looked to the captain like anger. A great reservoir of anger.

“Again, forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn,” the captain added.

“Of course.” The anger in Sen’s eyes was gone as quickly as it had come. The governor regarded him coolly. “You have some interesting views on the proper conduct of interspecies relations, Captain. Let me offer you some advice: In our long experience as a spacefaring civilization, we Thelasians have found that nothing is as important as the safe maintenance of neutral travel corridors. And in this sector of space, the maintenance of those corridors is the duty of the Confederacy. I would ask you to realize too that not every ship is able to defend itself as well as yours. Most vessels lack the variety of armaments you carry-your phase cannons, photonic torpedoes, and the like.”

It took a great deal of self-control for Archer not to react to that statement.

How in the world had Sen obtained that kind of detailed information on their weapons systems?

“Our weapons are a tool of last resort, Governor. Far better to avoid their use altogether, wouldn’t you say? To make communication-not conflict-a priority?”

“This conflict, I remind you, was not of our initiation. But I admire your ideals, Captain. And your courage in expressing them. Unfortunately, the universe does not deal with idealists kindly. You humans will learn that, I’m certain. Over time.”

“I hope not. Our ideals are a large part of who we are.”

“Forgive me if I’ve upset you, Captain. I didn’t mean to-how did you put it-speak out of turn?”

“I’m not upset. And you’re entitled to your opinions, of course.”

“Of course. Our differences are what make interspecies relations so often… interesting.” Sen leaned back in his chair. “I’m afraid I have to end our conversation at this point, Captain. I have another appointment. In the interim, I look forward to receiving your report, and, of course, you are welcome on Procyron, should you desire to visit. Sen out.”

The viewscreen went dark before Archer could reply in kind.

“Sonuvabitch,” Trip said.

The captain nodded. “Condescending sonuvabitch.”

Impertinent twit. Sen hadn’t been this angry since…

Well, since Roia. And that was, what-seventy years ago now? Eighty?

The implant sounded.

Lunch is here. Defense Council awaits your presence.

“Defense Council will have to wait.” He needed, Sen realized, to calm down. He would eat first. “Apologize again for me. I will be another ten minutes. Have Colonel Yusa start his presentation. Send the transmission to the viewer here.”

Yes, sir. Response from Teff-Langer Conglomerate on your query re: Captain Archer. Multiple references available.

Well. That was fast.

“Show them to me.”

They are quite expensive to retrieve in full, Roia said, quoting him a price.

Sen didn’t care. He asked for all of them. The viewer began filling with text. Sen ate as he read. He couldn’t help but be impressed. Again, for a youthful species, for a relatively unsophisticated species, Archer and his ship had managed, somehow, to be in the thick of a great many things. There was more information on their involvement in the Vulcan-Andorian conflict, more on their travels within the so-called Expanse, and with a race known as the Xindi, who Sen had never heard of before. And then some information on Archer alone, courtesy of the Confederacy’s representatives on Qo’noS, which Sen, as he read, recognized as the source of his initial feeling of familiarity on first hearing the captain’s name. He had seen this report before, months before in fact, and taken note of it, due to the not-inconsiderable sums of money mentioned. There had been no possibility of obtaining that money back then, though, so it had not remained uppermost in his consciousness. But now…

Things with Qo’noS were different. Everything, in fact, was different.

Sen finished his lunch then, and considered the possibilities as he made his way to the solarium.