Vulcan's Soul Trilogy Book One Page 6

  She was still the latter.

  Akh, Narviat…I warned you that too many reforms too quickly would make too many enemies. You were so sure of the people’s love….

  And now Neral was the praetor. Neral made a sly and calculating praetor, a true politician and warrior. He was, without a doubt, ambitious and out for himself. But whatever else he had done or might have done, Neral had had nothing to do with her husband’s death. Charvanek knew that; she would have been a poor chief of intelligence if she did not. And Neral knew that she knew. The assassination had been a stupid thing launched by a few stupid senators upset by Narviat’s reforms and wanting a return to Dralath’s way of doing things. They were dead, now, of course, every treacherous last one of them, and Neral had, to his credit, very much approved of their deaths.

  Which was why she was still chief of Romulan intelligence. And why Neral was still alive.

  Charvanek sighed and ran an impatient hand through her reddish-brown hair. Yes, she still grieved for Narviat. Even though she had never truly loved him, she had been…more than fond of him.

  And this was a ridiculous way to spend a day. Usually there were, perhaps, one or at worst two reports per day that were a nuisance. Today, though, every file in the latest batch of intelligence files seemed to be a problem. What was even more frustrating, the information in several of them conflicted with the data in others.

  And here I’d thought the worst of the data-keeping was over when Narviat and I had finally managed to straighten out the last of the mess Dralath left behind him.

  She snorted. That thinking had been naïve of them both. It wasn’t easy to run an empire, even when its government wasn’t corrupt.

  So here I sit like some deskbound clerk, going over bits of information about petty criminals who mean little to Romulan security, while out there the Romulan Star Empire is being attacked and I can’t do anything about it.

  That was at the heart of her discontent. Her agents did all the fieldwork, took all the risks, and all she did was just sit here and interpret the data, determine the innocent and have the guilty eliminated.

  As for having once been a praetor’s consort…well, that was a different matter. Charvanek’s hand rested on her wrist, where the marriage bracelet had once circled it, for one brief, atypically sentimental moment. Then she shook her head. What had been, had been. And now, like Neral or not, she worked with the new praetor for the greater good of the Romulan people.

  Whatever else she was or might become, Charvanek told herself, she was, and intended to remain, utterly loyal to the Romulan people. That in turn meant she would be utterly loyal to Praetor Neral’s reign as well, since he was doing the best he could for Romulus. No easy job, that, what with a treasury left half empty by the corrupt Dralath, and then nearly completely emptied by the demands of the Dominion War.

  And now, when we can least afford it, comes this sudden, savage, obscene challenge from this new enemy.

  The…Watraii. Who or what were they? Other than cowards and murderers, that was. She had searched all the databanks, and found absolutely no references to them or to any aliens even remotely related to them. As far as she could tell from the records, as far back as records were available, that was, there was not even the slightest bit of evidence to support their ridiculous claim and horrifying actions.

  And what are we going to do about it?

  But then Charvanek, with brutal honesty, changed that “we” to “I.” No matter what he wished, Neral wouldn’t be able to actually do all that much, not after the war had cut so badly into Romulan finances. He’d already told her privately his plans to simply go on the defensive, guard the homeworlds and—

  And what? Pray that the enemy ignored the remaining colony worlds?

  Prayer alone can’t keep them safe.

  But there were enough warriors still faithful to her, and enough of the older ships still in working condition…

  Oh, indeed. Five, maybe seven ships at most. The rest would be already part of Neral’s protective guard. Five slightly out-of-date ships. Now, there was a fine army to launch against the Watraii.

  Charvanek got to her feet, pacing restlessly about the room, thinking and planning, her quick brain linking data as neatly as that of any Vulcan.

  The Federation, now…the Federation would almost certainly have already seen the tapes of the colony’s destruction. The Watraii monstrosities had seemed proud enough of their foul work to want to show it off.

  Besides, if they knew anything about the politics of this quadrant—and the odds were great that they did, since the Dominion War had hardly been a secret operation—the Watraii would have wanted the Federation to see this “proof” that the Romulans, not the Watraii, were the monsters.

  Then again, the Federation had already proven its collective self to be firmly against genocide and massacres of innocents, regardless of species. After all, there had been that matter of Narendra III, where—unlikely thought—she and the Federation had actually fought on the same side. Not that they’d known it. They would not have thought kindly of the Watraii tape.

  But would any of the Federation actually act now?

  What, to help Romulans? No, and no again, that was truly unlikely. There would be no official action, at any rate—particularly not after that cursed war had depleted everyone’s resources.

  And that gives them a perfectly good excuse for not helping us and salving their consciences about genocide at the same time.

  Yes, and there was also the notorious Federation fear of offending anybody. The Federation officials now would probably be far too worried about keeping the peace with all the various factions, including the Klingons, to risk doing anything that might upset anyone. Particularly since the Romulan Star Empire and the Federation were, to put it mildly, hardly the firmest of allies.

  Neral, you who are my praetor whether I like it or not, you may never forgive me for doing this, for acting without the praetor’s knowledge or permission, and if I survive what I plan to do, I may have to fight my way back from disgrace yet again.

  Charvanek stared up at the tapestry of Estrak and Thuraka. It had once hung in her family estate, then been shamefully sold during the time when she was in disgrace and no one would help her. She’d managed to ransom it back only this past year. Estrak and Thuraka had never shrunk from doing what must be done. And neither, Charvanek thought, had she.

  But what other choice is there for me? For both of us? If you can’t do anything more to protect us than ringing round the homeworlds—and I don’t really blame you for that, I know what dire straits the homeworlds are in—if you can’t do anything but that, and the Federation almost certainly won’t do anything at all to help, then there isn’t much of a choice for me but to take what action I can.

  She sighed sharply.

  I will commandeer those leftover warbirds and whatever warriors will follow me, and see what can be done. You won’t be able to stop me; you can hardly afford to order your men to shoot down your own Chief of Intelligence.

  I don’t think that you would, at any rate.

  Then Charvanek shrugged. Whatever happened, as the saying went, happened. It would, at any rate, be far better to go out as a defender of Romulus than as a desk clerk!

  Then she whirled, pistol drawn—

  “Would you assassinate your praetor?” a coolly amused voice asked.

  “Neral! Curse it, man, I almost shot you!”

  A secret passage linked his office and hers, dating from before the time of Narviat. Since Charvanek knew that she was too valuable to Neral for him to try an assassination, she had never bothered having it sealed up. It was too convenient. There were, after all, still some deeply urgent affairs of state that had to be kept quiet.

  This time, though, Neral had, for whatever perverse reason all his own, apparently decided on secrecy without a cause, and had managed to slip into the office with utter silence. It was rare these days for anyone to surprise her. And now, pistol still in h
and, Charvanek could have cheerfully felled him for managing to startle her.

  Neral, blatantly ignoring the weapon, dropped down into the elegant Irlani chair with a sigh, eyebrow raised at her vehemence. “And wouldn’t that have shaken everyone up? ‘Scandal! Political Intrigue! Praetor Shot by Chief of Intelligence?’ ” He gave her a thin almost-grin, as much humor as he ever showed. “Who knows? It might have even stopped the damned senators from fighting with each other.”

  Neral could afford to be relatively open and mostly honest with her—and with her alone—since they knew too much about each other’s careers and less sanctioned activities for it to be otherwise. And when it came down to it, they both wanted the same thing: Romulan survival.

  “I doubt it,” Charvanek said. “Not for longer than it took for them to form ambitious thoughts.” She returned the pistol to its holster, making sure that he saw her safely fasten the holster’s catch again. “My praetor, you didn’t steal in here just to almost get shot.”

  “Of course not.” Neral leaned forward earnestly. “You mean to go, don’t you?”

  This time, Charvanek didn’t even tense a muscle. She wasn’t at all surprised that he’d figured it out; after all, Neral had not gotten where he was by being either foolish or naïve.

  “Yes, I do,” Charvanek said. “And if you know me at all, you know that I must.”

  “Just tell me this: Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “But what do you hope to accomplish? I can’t let you have enough ships to do any real damage. You have to know that. Much as I wish that I could find a way to let you blast the Watraii out of existence, the homeworlds’ safety comes before our own.”

  “Of course I know that. And of course I don’t expect a big fleet. Give me as many as you can spare, that’s all I ask. Give me the ships, the older ones, even the ones ready to be scrapped, and I will do what I can to find us a way to fight the Watraii.”

  “But do you have to go, you, yourself?” Before Charvanek could wonder if he’d actually just shown concern for another, Neral added dryly, “I would hate to have to train a new chief of intelligence right now.”

  “I’ll try to spare you the inconvenience,” she returned, just as dryly. “But who else is there to do this?” Before he could even try to answer that, she followed it up quickly with “Let’s not waste words. You don’t like me, I don’t like you, but we work together perfectly because we both love our homeworld. Who else can you trust? And who else, in this time of war, can you spare?”

  For one instant, she wanted him to argue with her. It would be wonderful not to have to do anything more. Hadn’t she done enough for Romulus by now? Hadn’t she given enough of herself?

  That, Charvanek told herself grimly, was not and could not be a consideration.

  Neral got to his feet, lean face expressionless. “Were it anyone else, I would be sure that I watched her go to her death. And yes, I would already be training her successor. But you—if ever there was a survivor, it is you, Charvanek. Go. See what you can do.”

  “It may be more than you expect.”

  Neral hesitated just a moment, as though about to argue with her. Then he said only, “So be it,” and left.

  Six

  Memory

  At dawn, the wind changed direction, blowing in not from the Forge, but from near ShanaiKahr. By the time Karatek and his guests rose and made their way to the Vulcan Space Initiative for the senior staff meeting held every ten days, their badges showed enough radiation exposure that decontamination was a medical necessity—as well as mandatory if he, Surak, and Surak’s followers were to be permitted inside.

  “Does your logic explain this?” Karatek, who had always found the inoculations painful, snapped at Surak.

  “There is no logic in this type of destruction,” Surak said. Surprising Karatek, who had decided that Surak was as undemonstrative as he was cold, he reached out to take his hand. “There is no pain,” he said.

  Astonishingly, the discomfort in Karatek’s arms—and else-where—subsided.

  Karatek nodded thanks. “I am ashamed,” he muttered.

  “Why? Your discipline is physics, not the science of the mind,” Surak said. He swept his cool, uncanny glance over Varen and Skamandros, who had finished their treatment, and reached for his overrobe just as the ground shook.

  “This installation is reinforced,” Karatek reassured his guests, and led the way from Decontamination to the VSI’s main conference room.

  And just in case it wasn’t, a hardened network of tunnels led to the surface, bringing potential refugees up outside the city.

  As they sat down around an immense oval table, aftershocks rattled the room, sending anything not fastened to walls or tables sliding. Heat prickled beneath Karatek’s high collar. Unusual: the room’s temperature was comfortable, cool, even, and perspiration was inefficient. Was he suffering a reaction from the decontamination procedures?

  Like most of the other scientists present, Karatek glanced at the sensor panels. At this point, seismic activity was well below the VSI’s tolerance. Its atmosphere was purified: if the radiation increased, there could be no better shelter.

  But what of the people outside the VSI, outside ShiKahr?

  Let this level of fallout continue, however, and I cannot answer for the health of my grandchildren, Karatek thought. Assuming any of us on Vulcan live that long.

  It was apprehension that had made Karatek sweat. The mind could write deep in the body, although the adepts and Healers had always striven to control that. Surak, though he had seen more of the war than Karatek, looked as serene as always.

  I wonder: Will he be as composed when my colleagues get through with him?

  Surak’s presence could be no surprise to them: some had even met him at Karatek’s house. But now they were staring at him as if they had never seen him before.

  Was it logical for them to overplay their curiosity and surprise? Karatek asked himself and knew that for a question he would not have asked before Surak came to stay with him.

  He had known for at least one hundred days that it would be his turn to present his most recent findings at this meeting. He had been looking forward to demonstrating the fuel efficiency of his latest engine model. In fact, he had gone without sleep for at least fifteen of those days to prepare.

  Yet, here he was, rising to introduce his guest and yielding his long-awaited presentation time to Surak.

  Some will say this will affect my performance evaluation, even the course of my entire career. But if I am right, if Surak is right, I will not have a career—or anything else—if we Vulcans continue on our present course.

  Karatek and T’Vysse had spent far too much of the strictly limited private time available to them debating the risk to his career of substituting a speech by a notorious radical for a reasoned, even exciting presentation of his own research.

  Ultimately, it hadn’t been Surak’s arguments, his passionate concern (despite his claims of being motivated solely by logic) that something of Vulcan be preserved, but Karatek’s own perceptions that motivated him to take the risk.

  The risk was acceptable, he told himself. Those were not words that he would have used before he met Surak.

  It seemed that Surak had already convinced him that all Vulcan was in peril.

  What will he decide to convince me of next? Karatek asked himself, with another prickle of apprehension. Perhaps he would ask this uncomfortable guest of his to show him the meditation techniques that allowed even young Varen to suppress his emotions—at least, most of the time.

  In the days since Karatek had claimed Surak and his followers as guest-friends, he had observed them keenly. Varen was all youth and fire. Skamandros? The man who called himself Surak’s shadow was still an enigma. Karatek might not trust him, as Surak did, at his own back, but the quiet, sardonic man wasn’t just fanatically loyal to Surak, he was stubborn enough to cling to the old ways of not violating guest-friendship.


  As for Surak himself, Karatek found him valuable, if arduous, company, about on the level of his kahs-wan trial or the hike to Vulcan’s much-shrunken Eastern Sea to see the statues of the Ancients of Days, carved and set on the cliffs leading to the strand in days before Vulcan even had recorded history.

  And he had this consolation, at least: he would be able to observe Surak’s impact on his colleagues.

  Again, the installation shuddered. It was considered improper to introduce news feeds into this staff meeting, but Karatek knew everyone in the room was speculating about where the last attack occurred.

  “In my opinion, evacuation is not a necessary option,” Surak said, before he was acknowledged by T’Kehr Torin, seated at the head of the table. “I calculate an 85.67 percent probability that this installation will sustain only minor damage, primarily to its occupants’ composure.”

  Torin raised an eyebrow. As chair of the Vulcan Space Initiative’s Research-and-Development team, it was his prerogative to manage its staff. He frequently compared the task to herding le-matya, but it would be a rash man who tried to wrest it from him. Older than his associates, with a warrior’s scars earned in twenty years of fighting enemies ranging from the te-Vikram to the High Command and a scholar’s silvering hair, Torin had as little patience with presumption as he did with shoddy logic. Even scientists who had worked with him for years still called him T’Kehr.

  “Indeed?” Torin asked coldly. “Clarify.”

  Surak inclined his head. “In the last 10.3 years, the period since this facility has been in operation, ShiKahr has suffered five seismological perturbations of greater magnitude than the episodes we have encountered today. Because I have heard nothing of damages to this installation in the days I have spent as T’Kehr Karatek’s guest, I must assume that its fabric is sound. Therefore, it is likely to withstand this incident.

  “Furthermore,” Surak continued, “given increased levels of contamination in the atmosphere, I would hypothesize that this is one of the safest places in ShiKahr.”