Vulcan’s Soul Book II - Exiles Read online

  I can hear you now on the subject of our making any alliances with Klingons, let alone with Klingon privateers. But the universe has changed, Jim, since the days of our Starfleet service together, and alliances have changed with it.

  Spock sat forward suddenly, all his illogical fancy gone as swiftly as though it had never occurred. An image was forming on the screen, and the opening series of coded numbers that raced across the bottom of the screen told him this was a Romulan response.

  Of course the face that appeared on-screen wasn’t that of Charvanek back on Romulus. There was no need for her to send so distant—and so risky—a message, not when there were trusted underlings in smaller vessels that were legitimately not quite so far away. The Romulan who stared resolutely back at Spock was a heavy-jawed captain, young for his rank but with cold dark eyes and a determinedly expressionless face.

  “I am Sub-Commander Sarval,” he said without preamble. “I know who you are. And the one who gave me this mission beneath a mission sends you this word as an assurance: ‘horses.’”

  That word, which had no Romulan or Vulcan equivalent, was said in Standard. Had Spock been human, he would have let out a startled burst of laughter. As it was, it took all of his Vulcan self-control not to show anything of his surprise and involuntary amusement on his face. It was the last word he would have expected to hear from a Romulan—which was almost certainly precisely why Charvanek had chosen it. Not only was Charvanek now the only person left on Romulus who would even know that the word “horses” existed, she would also be the only one on Romulus who would know its significance. Thanks to one Dr. Leonard McCoy, Ruanek had, long before coming to live on Vulcan, back in the days when he was merely a Romulan centurion, developed a fascination for those Earth animals.

  And indeed he still has it, Spock thought, remembering that Ruanek was a very long distance part-owner of a breeding farm on Earth. Charvanek always did have a most unlikely and unexpected sense of humor.

  “Understood,” Spock replied, as calmly as though hearing a Romulan say “horses” was an ordinary occurrence. “Is the item ready for transport to this ship?”

  “It is.”

  “Excellent.” Opening a private com link, Spock informed the transporter chief, “Be ready for a package to be beamed aboard.”

  “A…package, sir?” She sounded doubtful, but willing to please.

  “Precisely.” The fewer aboard who knew that they were taking on Romulan equipment, the better. And the more secrecy, the safer Charvanek would be. She could hardly be seen to be giving Romulan technology to a Federation ship. After the mission would be time enough for revelations. “It will not strain your transporter’s capabilities.” Spock gave the puzzled but politely cooperative chief the approximate weight and dimensions, and then sent a message directly to Scotty: “The item is in transit.”

  “Uh, we got it, Mr. Ambassador,” the transporter chief cut in. “Whatever it is.”

  “Heard and understood,” Sarval said, and broke contact. The Romulan ship sped away and was soon out of range.

  “I’m on my way,” Scotty said en route to the transporter room, and Spock sat back in satisfaction. If anyone could do this job quickly, efficiently, and correctly, Scotty could.

  The Alliance, flanked by the two Klingon ships, headed on toward Watraii space—and all the while the Alliance’s engineering crew, under the command of one Montgomery Scott, worked swiftly and feverishly.

  “Systems up and running, Captain Saavik,” Scotty sent in triumph.

  “Excellent.”

  The Alliance now was cloaked, thanks to Romulan permission—even if that permission hadn’t exactly come from open or official channels.

  Cloaking is very necessary, Spock thought.

  Without cloaking, the Starfleet intruders would almost certainly be detected before getting close enough. The Watraii would not only attack them, quite justifiably, they would almost certainly destroy both the artifact and the intruders—and with them, Pavel Chekov.

  Now, though, Romulan cloaking had given them a chance for success.

  Eleven

  Memory

  ROVALAT’S STORY

  Rovalat hurled the dagger ship out of the docking bay into the barren field of stars toward his enemy. So what if he had never been this far from the ship alone? There was no point in looking back. There never had been. What was space, after all, but the vastest desert he had ever traveled?

  Wastelands had fascinated him since his kahs-wan. As a young man, he had wandered the Forge, explored the northern salt waste up as far as the sea, ventured onto the lava plains to stand looking up into the eyes of the Colossi, weathered the worst electrical storm anyone could recall, and been the first man to cross the Great Erg in the southern continent.

  He had climbed past the shrines on Mount Seleya and ventured into the eternal snows near its preternaturally sharp peaks. At the peak of his world, the sky grew dark even at noon, the air was so thin he had to fight to breathe, and the cold was greater than anything he had ever endured, but he had mastered it. Better yet, he had mastered himself.

  Seleya’s upper peak loomed within his reach, but he had considered it impious to ascend. Instead, Rovalat had gazed out across the Forge, then down into the chasm between the two peaks, measuring the distance. When he finally raised his eyes again, he saw a sundweller far below him, glittering iridescent green and metallic white and amber, its wings fully extended to catch the thermals and bask in the sun’s warmth. The sight made him forget the stabbing pain in his side as his heart raced and he struggled for each breath.

  He had descended, returned to his family’s home, and taken up his life’s work: preparing and testing generations of boys to come. Except for that last, disastrous kahs-wan, it had been a good life, but all things must come to an end. Sooner or later, even this exile would end, and his adopted sons must be alive to see it.

  To feel the heat of Vulcan’s star, beating down upon the Forge again. To gaze out across the desert that had molded him one last time…

  Since the day Rovalat had failed to save children he treasured, he had created a desert of silence and shame. Time to atone and forgive myself, he thought. Just let me save the children.

  If Karatek had not understood, he would not have allowed Rovalat to depart. There could be no better heir for his katra; it would only bewilder the others.

  Around him, below him, above him, glittered stars as relentless as his will as Rovalat forced the dagger past its maximum safe speed toward the shuttle, then coaxed it to a protective course right above his children.

  Over the dagger’s com, he heard the voices of others he had known from their childhoods, protesting to Karatek and urging Rovalat to return home to Shavokh. He laughed to himself. Shavokh was only a ship. The waste was his home.

  Besides, there was no point in arguing. In catching up to the shuttle, Rovalat had expended much of the fuel he would have needed to return. Perhaps he might find room on the shuttle’s return trip…. No, if all went well, the shuttle would be filled with his children, rescued and rescuers.

  No room for him.

  If only he could save his children, he would ask nothing more. It was not, after all, as if he expected to live long and prosper.

  There! Rovalat saw the shuttle touch down on what was as barren and unprepossessing a planetoid as any they had passed. He followed its crew out, tracking them across the plain, then waiting with an old hunter’s patience for their enemy to show itself.

  In the end, things happened as Rovalat had expected, although more quickly than he would have believed possible. As his children extended their hands in peace, burly aliens emerged and responded with violence. His children fell.

  So much for logic, Rovalat thought. It had always cost his people more than they could afford. Ironic, was it not? Young Karatek had tried to serve logic and make it serve him. But in the end, it had been the guile and passion of his children that had prevailed, that must prevail if these last rem
nants of the Mother World were to live on some as-yet-undiscovered world.

  Peering out of hiding, Rovalat saw that he had gauged his risks correctly. The aliens were so intent on “processing” his children that they had no time to notice an aged man with just enough strength in him for one last hunt. Years of desert stillness, years of isolation on board ship had taught him a kind of invisibility.

  The healers had once told him it was a side effect of his mental gifts. They had wished to send him to Seleya for further study. He had refused. He had the desert, and he had his children. He had never needed, nor wanted, more.

  Now, he needed only one more thing, and he would find it. He scanned the area, his eyes dropping, from time to time, to the image caster young Sarissa had given him. He would use it to consult with the man holding its counterpart on Shavokh, so far away. If Karatek had helped design the engines of the great ships, it logically followed that this wilderness of conduits and passages was his kind of desert.

  “Do you see?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” Karatek whispered back.

  There! Those panels with their pulsing lights looked as if the conduits beneath might carry some form of life support. Rovalat reached out to touch them, to remove the panels, disable the control mechanisms. The vibration of the corridors altered. In some places, it ceased. Hearing a whine, then ringing, as if some distress signal had gone off, he made what speed he could to the next intersection of corridors and control panels, where he wreaked still further damage. He only hoped he could weaken this installation sufficiently for its masters to focus on it rather than wager on his children’s deaths in an arena.

  Heavy rock and the static of deep space overhead might degrade transmission, but Rovalat’s voice never faltered as he told his story to the man who would advise him on this last adventure, then remember it for all time.

  He damaged six more conduits, then decided that the gradual approach just was not working. Even if it ultimately did succeed, it would take so long that a fully loaded shuttle could never reach Shavokh, which dared not turn to retrieve it. His hands grew chill, and his vision blurred, though he told himself that those were only side effects of the illness that was killing him even more slowly. But he knew the truth: he was afraid.

  “Despair is counterproductive,” Karatek whispered. “You are lost in the desert. The sand is blowing; you cannot see the stars. How would you orient yourself?”

  “I would go to ground,” Rovalat said. And indeed he had.

  His composure returned. A hissing told him he had reached an air supply. Best not disable that. But other, glowing tubes beckoned.

  No sooner seen than smashed.

  And then Rovalat was elsewhere, in a doorless room with gray walls, lacking all furniture but three low platforms, each surmounted by a dome of force. Beneath each shimmering dome pulsed a living, glowing brain, one yellow, one green, and one orange.

  An alarm sounded and, over it, shouted words that Rovalat suspected meant “intruder alert.”

  These…these things had scanned him. They had known he was here all along.

  Why?

  Even as his mind formed the thought, the answer came.

  “Diversion.”

  Whatever these things were, they were bored. Even with the killing of Rovalat’s children.

  He did not need Surak to understand the illogic, the criminal waste of their boredom. Bored? With a wealth of beings to study and all space lying before them, given their abilities? It was not just illogical, it was frivolous and capricious. Beings who felt boredom as they bet on captives’ death might welcome a novelty. But they would turn on it the instant they found something even newer.

  “What are you?” he demanded.

  “We are the Providers.” He had heard that voice on Seyhan’s recordings.

  Rovalat’s lip curled in disgust.

  Provider? What did these creatures provide, apart from death?

  Rovalat felt his blood heat. He drew three deep breaths. Control. That was the way of Surak’s students, was it not? He had given the disciplines some study, earlier in his life. He’d even had a reason. Control was useful for creating stillness; stillness was useful in approaching animals more closely; and approaching wild creatures that might be deadly—and on Vulcan, probably were—could mean life.

  Be patient. Be the desert. Wait, and then strike.

  Rovalat put Seyhan out of his thoughts and emotions. He had not had the privilege of training him, but Seyhan had been a credit to those who had enjoyed that honor.

  “Why do you steal my children?” Rovalat demanded.

  Karatek’s face, tiny on the tiny screen, looked so pained, despite all his fine logical control, that Rovalat wanted to laugh. Yes, he knew he had asked a rhetorical question. But it was a way of starting. When you met a wild creature, how you acted was far more important than what you said, if you used words at all. And threat display was vital.

  “You steal my children for diversion?” he asked.

  The brains—the Providers—pulsed. Rovalat took it for a “yes.”

  Again, he suppressed his rage long enough to look around. It was not, he told himself, as if these Providers were entirely discarnate intelligence, creatures of pure force. Only the katra was disembodied and immortal, until it decided otherwise. That provided some reassurance.

  So, if the Providers’ consciousness resided in these brains, something had to be nourishing them. Set into the silvery walls, panels of lights ebbed and flowed, reflected by the panels embedded into the platforms that held the brains.

  Assumption: some form of nutrient flowed into those things, in response to some energy measurement that indicated when nutrition or waste extraction was necessary. It was just like the desert or even Shavokh: a fragile, closed ecostructure.

  All his life, Rovalat had never damaged desert or ship. That was about to change.

  Seyhan had said that his team’s weapons had not worked. This close to the Providers’ central installation, perhaps they could not afford to nullify all energies. Pulling out a sidearm, he aimed at a glowing section of a wall and fired.

  Just as he thought. So confident were these Providers in their native habitat that they forgot to take the simplest precautions!

  Part of the panel melted. The rest shattered with a satisfying crash, scattering pale shards across the room. Hot blood flowed down his left temple from a stinging cut.

  “What are you doing?” the mad, worthless minds asked.

  “Diverting you,” Rovalat said, grinning like a le-matya about to pounce. In all his years on board Shavokh, he could count the times he had been able to grin on the fingers of one hand.

  “Hurry.” Karatek whispered, reminding Rovalat that time was passing. With each instant, the planetoid and Shavokh were moving away from each other, and people in the arenas on this wasteland of a world were fighting and dying.

  He fired again. The lights in the room flickered, then flared as secondary systems kicked in. Karatek would know better.

  “Are you sufficiently diverted to answer me?” he demanded.

  “What do you want?”

  “You have my children,” he said. “I want them back.”

  Simple enough. He had never needed fancy phrases in the desert.

  Again the lights altered. So, the contempt in Rovalat’s voice had gotten through. He fired again, taking care not to aim directly at the disembodied brain. For one thing, he didn’t think his sidearm could penetrate the force shields. For another, he suspected that they would produce a deadly ricochet. It was illogical to expend one’s life for no purpose.

  “Are you diverted? Do the impulses that pass for emotions in your brain please you? Are the neurons firing? Are you getting the nutrition you need? Are you still bored?” Rovalat demanded.

  He raised the sidearm to fire again, this time closer to the yellow brain.

  “Stop!”

  “Why? My children came down here in good faith, and you made them slaves. My oth
er children sought only metals to help them on their journey, and you stole them. Why should I not destroy your habitat? You are depopulating mine!”

  Time was passing. The chamber seemed doorless, but these Providers might be able to bring in guards and stop him. That Rovalat could be so close, yet still fail in his quest drove him as close to panic as he had ever been. That included the time a cave he had decided to spend the night in turned out to attract a le-matya seeking only a refuge in which to bear her kits.

  That time, Rovalat had thrust fire at her, and escaped. This time, he pulled out what Sarissa had helped him take from the armory.

  A fusion grenade.

  “Maybe you are as far above me as I am above the creatures that creep upon the land,” he told the Providers. “My sidearm can only damage your environment. But this,” he brandished the grenade, “might destroy you.”

  The lights flickered all about him. Soon, they would bring in rescuers, warriors stronger than he had ever been. He must strike this bargain and strike it soon.

  “Does that divert you? Can you still know fear? Can you still grasp the thrill of pitting your wits against a wild beast?”

  Again, he thrust the grenade at them. If they had materialized him here, they could send him out into the chill of space before he freed his children. The thought made his hand tremble. He made it look as if he was brandishing his weapon.

  “Shall I blow you to the Womb of Fire?” he asked. “You may be powerful, but do you want to risk an end to all your wonderful diversions? Wouldn’t even boredom be preferable?”

  He edged in even closer.

  Agitated cascades of lights lit the room.

  “Name your terms,” the Providers said.

  “I want all of them freed,” Rovalat declared.

  “They cannot all be your children.”

  The orange brain seemed to throb with what sounded like indignation. He had heard children whine like that. Many had not survived their kahs-wan. They had not been fit.

  “They are someone’s children, even if they are not mine.” Again, he feinted with the grenade.

  “And will you claim our Master Thrall as well?” Rovalat could not have imagined the satisfaction in the brains’ mental voices.