Vulcan’s Soul Book II - Exiles Page 5

Who knew if Vulcan remained whole? If the fleet returned and found only radioactive fragments, they would have exceeded the ships’ maximum projected life expectancy by so much that it was likely that the Mother Sun’s light would touch only derelicts, their crews long dead and mummified in the dry, frigid air, assuming any air at all remained.

  S’task pushed himself to his feet. Instantly, the priestess raced to his side. “The knowledge of how to return to Vulcan is gone.” He labored for further breath, his head down. Karatek was horrified at how thready his voice had become.

  If any of the people seated around the table had even used their copies of Surak’s Analects to do more than collect dust, Karatek would not have been able to tell from the way most of them leapt to their feet.

  With the exception of the priestess Iria at S’task’s side, her small fingers testing his pulse, most were outraged, shouting things like “wanton neglect!” and “criminal negligence!”

  Avarin was in the lead. Karatek lowered his eyes, watching T’Partha watch the younger man. Would he challenge S’task for leadership?

  The old leader pulled away from Iria, then raised an eyebrow at S’lovan, who shrugged.

  “Computer error?” T’Partha whispered to Karatek.

  “The last time the computers went down, there was a great deal of consultation back and forth among the ships’ navigators,” Karatek replied. “We know that information was lost. This specific datum could easily have vanished with the rest.”

  T’Partha raised a hand over her lips, either to conceal a smile or mask her words.

  “I expunged it myself from the navigational databases,” S’task said, prompting another eruption. “Since the data no longer exist, this dispute is pointless.”

  He sank back into his seat, accepting the cup Iria offered him with a hand that quite visibly shook.

  T’Partha was nodding approval. Karatek wondered how much of that tremor she thought was natural.

  “S’task is nobody’s fool,” the woman said. “In fact, I think the only man who could ever argue him to a standstill was—”

  Surak, Karatek thought.

  S’task had pushed himself back onto his feet, supported now by S’lovan.

  “May I have your attention?” S’lovan was asking politely. “Counselors, healers…”

  S’lovan drew a deep breath. “Kroykah!” he shouted.

  When the echoes of his command subsided, he escorted S’task to stand by the chair that held the ancient sword. S’task extended a hand to touch the back of the chair. His fingers trembled, then were stilled by a clear effort of will.

  “Recriminations are illogical,” the old man rasped. “I acted as I did because I believed my actions were indeed logical. The question that remains is this: Have we the resolution to see the task through, or have we become less than we thought? If so, then I submit that we do not wait for mischance or metal fatigue to take us, but die with what honor we still possess. If that is your decision, then I give you my word that I will lead the way, as I led the way into exile.”

  He slipped his hand down from the back of the chair and brushed his fingers against the hilt of the ancient sword.

  “I swear it,” he whispered.

  Then the old man swayed, and Iria joined S’lovan in easing him back down. Another outburst like that, and they could lose S’task here and now, Karatek thought.

  T’Partha rose. “I would like to propose a short recess,” she began. Her voice was warm, and smooth with long practice, and she drew consensus about her like a ceremonial cloak. “Perhaps a brief interval of meditation or refresh—”

  “Commander!” A young man who looked enough like S’lovan to be his close kin raced into the room, drew himself up, and bowed his head: deference to a commanding officer or to a Head of House.

  “A message has just come through for T’Kehr Karatek and Commissioner T’Partha of the Shavokh,” he said.

  “What is it?” T’Partha asked, while Karatek, feeling immensely old and colder than even envirosave could account for, sank back into his chair.

  “You’re required to return immediately,” the young crewman said. “Shavokh is under attack.”

  Four

  Now

  EARTH STARDATE 54104.1

  Ruanek, once of Romulus but now of Vulcan, waited, a tall, lean, dark-haired figure in a simple white tunic and trousers, poised on the balls of his feet, crouching slightly.

  Ah yes, the other was giving away exactly what he was going to do by the quick flicker of his gaze and the tensing of his muscles—

  Ha, yes, here he came. Ruanek timed the rush with practiced skill, and then, at the last moment, twisted sharply to the left. His opponent hurtled helplessly past him, and Ruanek calmly turned and hurried the man on his way with a shoe to his rump. The man landed flat on the exercise mat with a loud “oof!”

  Refusing to reveal so much as the slightest trace of a grin, since he was, after all, supposed to be Vulcan, Ruanek turned to face the row of academics watching them and gave them all the smallest of Vulcan bows. His students were an unlikely lot, some of them overweight, some of them definitely not in the proper fitness for their species. But they all stood voluntarily out here in the early morning on the lawn behind the white bulk of the conference center, watching him as earnestly as a group of awed children.

  If you’d had early morning drills as often as I did back on Romulus, you wouldn’t be so eager, he thought wryly. All these years on Vulcan, and he still hadn’t forgotten what those cursed drills had been like.

  Ah well, give these folks credit for wanting to learn. “And so,” Ruanek told them all, “as you have just witnessed, if you keep yourself calm and wait for the attack, you can use your enemy’s strength against him.” Still fighting that inconvenient grin, he gave a hand to the man who was sprawled on the mat and pulled him back to his feet. “Are you undamaged? Yes? Good.” Ruanek turned back to the others. “This is true even if your enemy outweighs you or is twice your size.”

  With that, he snatched up a towel from one of the piles on the workout table and pretended to be busy wiping his face dry, but now actually allowing himself a full Romulan warrior’s grin into the towel’s shelter. All these years away from the empire, all these years on Vulcan as a scholar—and yes, admittedly, as a martial arts trainer as well, since the Vulcans found unarmed self-defense quite logical to learn—and he was still a warrior underneath it all.

  But training anyone in warrior skills had been the furthest thing from Ruanek’s mind when he had accepted the invitation to the linguistics conference. He’d been genuinely surprised once he’d gotten here to find that they’d scheduled him to lead something like this. Without, of course—academics being what they were—bothering to ask or even tell him. Still, Ruanek supposed that even academics, like this willing but definitely out-of-condition group of humans and Zarins, might find self-defense techniques useful.

  As an exercise regime if nothing else, Ruanek thought.

  Of course, the lovely coincidence that Romulan–Federation negotiations happened to be going on at the same time in the same region here on Earth had also been part of the reason for his quick acceptance…

  Which fascinating fact, of course, my wife figured out almost before I did! That was one of the prices one paid for marrying a Vulcan—along with the illogical happiness that came with mutual love, one also married into a life of relentless, flawless logic and extrapolation. Not that I regret anything about T’Selis, Ruanek thought with an inner smile of complete contentment. Except that her medical duties kept her on Vulcan rather than coming here, visiting Earth with me. I would have enjoyed sharing San Francisco with her.

  Ah well, I’ll admit that I still wonder what she saw in me—though I’m glad that she saw it!

  Just then a warning bell sounded, signaling the end of the session. “Gentlebeings,” Ruanek said formally, “you are dismissed.”

  As they left, Ruanek headed in the direction of his room, meaning to chang
e into more suitable academic garb and then attend the session on “Folkloric Interchanges in Bogati and Vulcan Transmissions.” Since none of the scholars in that session were actually either Bogati or Vulcan, their talks promised to be interesting, at the very least, and—

  Just then his small personal communicator beeped at him. With the faintest of frowns at the unexpected interruption, Ruanek glanced down at it. What session had been canceled this time?

  “Ruanek,” a familiar voice said.

  “Spock.” Ruanek stiffened. “What is it? Is something wrong?” That had come out sounding far too emotional for a Vulcan or, for that matter, a Romulan. Fighting to keep his voice properly Vulcan-calm, Ruanek asked, “Has something happened at the meeting?”

  “No. The two sides are as far apart as before.”

  “Then why—”

  “We must discuss something else, Ruanek: I have just received a rather mysterious and quite urgent message from Admiral Uhura.”

  “Uhura!”

  “She wishes to see both of us as quickly as possible.”

  One of Ruanek’s eyebrows quirked up, a gesture he’d picked up from Spock over the years. “Shall I hazard a guess?”

  “Guesses are illogical.”

  “Of course they are. But I’ll wager—yes, yes, I know, illogic again; blame my background—I’ll wager that this has something to do with Romulan security. What else could it be, with the meetings taking place, or not taking place? Are we to meet in Admiral Uhura’s office?”

  “Indeed.” Spock quickly transmitted the location of that office, since Ruanek wanted to be certain of it. His last visit there had been over two years ago. “Meet me there as swiftly as possible.”

  “Believe me,” Ruanek said, “I will.”

  “Excellent. Spock out.”

  Ah well, Ruanek thought wryly, I probably wouldn’t have found anything useful in that Bogati–Vulcan session, anyhow.

  Uhura’s office was as quietly sophisticated as ever. The room was not overly large; it could more accurately be described as a comfortable space, one that was pleasantly furnished in warm golds and browns that set the mind at ease. A Vulcan calligraphic scroll, tranquil in its brushstrokes, hung on one wall, and a Ghanaian kente cloth worked in an intricate geometric design of brown and sand hung on another.

  It had never looked like the office of anyone with any real power. But then, Spock mused, Uhura had never liked anything ostentatious, even back in her career as communications officer of the Enterprise. In her opinion, he knew, nothing more than this agreeably casual office was needed, even by someone who was head of Starfleet Intelligence and had been so for quite a few Federation-standard years.

  Admiral Uhura, who had been thoughtfully studying a monitor, turned in her partha-leather chair to face Spock and Ruanek as they entered. In the two months since Spock had last seen her, she had not changed at all but remained an elegant, deceptively tranquil, fiercely competent woman. Her dark skin, somewhat weathered by time and stress, was beautifully set off by her crown of silver hair, and her eyes were those of someone who was well used to calibrating chances, analyzing data, and making the necessary conclusions work.

  It was Uhura who, two months ago, had sent Spock, his wife Saavik—Captain Saavik of the U.S.S. Alliance—Ruanek, and Admiral Pavel Chekov on a secret mission to aid the Romulans. At the time, the Romulans had been under attack by a mysterious, ritually masked alien race, the Watraii. The Watraii had made the incredible claim that the Romulans had usurped their worlds of Romulus and Remus. That issue, Spock thought, had never been settled. But the mission had been counted a success, with the theft of a vital piece of Watraii military equipment that put the Watraii at a strong disadvantage. They had been turned back from what might well have been a massacre.

  But in the process, Pavel Chekov, once one of the crew of the original Starship Enterprise, had been killed.

  A Pyrrhic victory, as the humans call it, Spock thought. And where have the Watraii been in these many weeks? What have they been planning? Why have we not heard from them?

  Uhura smiled at them both. “Spock, Ruanek. Welcome, gentlemen. I’m sorry to pull you away from your respective business, but this matter simply can’t wait. You see, it’s about Chekov.”

  Both Spock and Ruanek straightened in shock.

  “But Admiral Chekov is dead!” Ruanek protested. “We both saw him die, torn apart in that transporter accident!”

  But Spock, picking up the odd note in Uhura’s voice, raised a thoughtful eyebrow, studying her, carefully revealing nothing of the sudden, utterly illogical inner rush of mingled hope and guilt that was sweeping through him.

  “Did we?” he wondered aloud.

  In all the years that he had known her, back to the days when they’d both served aboard Jim Kirk’s Enterprise, Uhura had never been given to inaccurate outbursts. Could it be that Ruanek and he had somehow been mistaken? Did that mean…Could it have been the Watraii warrior, not Chekov, who’d died? Had they actually abandoned Chekov to the Watraii?

  “There was, after all, no visible proof of his death,” Spock continued.

  “There was that cry of agony during the transporter malfunction,” Ruanek countered.

  “Which need not have come from Admiral Chekov,” Spock replied. “The Watraii warrior who was with him as the beam took them both might have been the one to utter it, and might have been the one who took the worst damage in the malfunctioning transporter beam. The only evidence that we have, other than that cry, is merely the knowledge that the Watraii beam was incompatible with our transporter equipment.”

  “Surely that is sufficient in itself,” Ruanek returned.

  “Circumstantial evidence alone is hardly logical.”

  “No, it’s not,” Uhura cut in. “But, gentlemen, I must interrupt this Vulcan logical debate. I can assure you both that Pavel Chekov is, indeed, very much alive. And from all that my…shall we say…certain sources tell me, he is very much in need of a rescue.”

  Spock nodded. He knew that Uhura had a series of “listeners” who served as her eyes and ears throughout the galaxy. He was not aware that she had any such listeners in the small area of space controlled by the Watraii, but she would not have made him aware of such operatives until he needed to know, either.

  “That brave man in the hands of the Watraii,” Ruanek exclaimed. “Of course he shall have that rescue.”

  “He shall,” Spock vowed, “and swiftly.”

  For now it is clear that we are partly to blame. We were so certain that he had been slain, and so eager to avoid further confrontations with the Watraii…

  Yes, we should have waited and investigated further. And Chekov is not a young man. He could not endure long captivity.

  But regret for the past was illogical.

  Hope was also illogical. But hope would not be denied.

  Uhura held up a warning hand. “Unfortunately, gentlemen, the situation is even more complicated than that. My sources all agree on one thing: Chekov is being held not on a ship or a station, which would be relatively easy to take, but on what we believe to be the Watraii homeworld itself.”

  There was silence for a few moments. Then Spock began thoughtfully, “That is, indeed, a complication.”

  “Oh, indeed.” Uhura gave them both a slight, wry smile. “You understand, I’m sure, that no matter how reliable my sources may be, I can’t risk revealing them. And even if I could, they can hardly be put before the Federation Council for a declaration of war.”

  “Even if they could,” Spock continued, “Starfleet cannot very well invade a sovereign world, not without being instantly labeled an aggressor by all its enemies and most of its allies. Nor can it risk a war at this time, or the potential unraveling of new alliances.”

  Uhura folded her arms on her desk. “And the Federation has no treaty with the Watraii, so there’s no hope for diplomatic action.”

  Ruanek glanced from Spock to Uhura and back again. “Well, then it must be a
covert mission.”

  Uhura leaned forward on her folded arms, not quite frowning at him. “You say that so lightly.”

  “Your pardon, but no,” Ruanek countered, “I don’t say it lightly at all. Believe me, I know what’s at stake for everyone: You know my background, and I know the military mind. But if it can’t be an official mission, a secret one is the only logical alternative.” He gave a purely Romulan shrug of acceptance. “We managed a covert mission two months ago and came away from it without creating undue chaos for the Federation. We surely can manage such a mission again.”

  “You do realize the problems?” Uhura asked.

  Ruanek tallied his answer off on his fingers. “One, a chance of starting a war. Two, a chance of killing innocent people—including the very man we need to save. Three, a chance of courts-martial for all Starfleet participants—and no, I’m not being facetious about any of this. But we all know that a covert mission really is the only way to rescue Pavel Chekov. And we can do it.”

  “Optimism is an emotion,” Spock commented.

  “Indeed it is,” Ruanek agreed, but made no apology for his own. “Indeed it is.”

  And illogical or not, Spock thought, it is an emotion that I share with you, Ruanek.

  Five

  Memory

  Karatek’s empty cup fell to the deck, the ancient stone shattering with a strangely musical clatter. Behind him, T’Partha, diplomatic even in extremity, was forcing out hasty apologies. Then, Streon and T’Via flanking them, they were out the door, abandoning decorum and running toward the shuttlebay.

  The unaccustomed effort and fear pushed up Karatek’s heart rate. He might be warm for the first time since the great ships had voted to go on envirosave, but he could hardly be grateful for the sensation. Fire was warm, but fire, in this desert of stars, meant death.

  All the mastery of his emotions that Karatek had so painstakingly studied since the moment Surak had appeared out of the desert and laid deft hands on his future vanished. What had pushed up his heart rate was not so much exertion as it was fear, worse than he had felt even when Vulcan Station was destroyed, and the exile began. He could remember the fires in the sky as the station exploded, then fire all around him.