Vulcan’s Soul Book II - Exiles Page 8

“Data’s commanding officer is Jean-Luc Picard, am I correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, well, you wouldn’t remember it, Spock, since you were, well, not in your right mind at the time,” Ruanek said, delicately sidestepping the fact that Spock had been deep in the madness of Pon farr back then, “but Captain Picard and I go back quite a bit. When you and I were escaping from Romulus, he was the one who rescued us from deep space—though he never did learn who you were—and he and I…let us say that we eliminated Dralath together.”

  “Ah.” Spock carefully refrained from saying that only Ruanek could ever have managed to be both an honorable Romulan commander and a Federation warrior at the same time.

  “Yes, and when I was your father’s aide on Earth,” Ruanek continued, “Picard and I almost literally ran into each other, and I had a good deal of evasive explaining to do.”

  As I can well imagine. “It is unlikely that there will be another such encounter in the near future,” Spock said solemnly.

  “No,” Ruanek agreed just as solemnly. “Under the circumstances, I can’t see Captain Picard being able to aid us just now.” He shook his head. “An android lieutenant commander. Now that certainly has to be our most unusual volunteer.”

  “Ah, excuse me, gentlemen,” Uhura cut in, suddenly alert, “but there is an incoming message. Encrypted.”

  “Shall I leave?” Ruanek asked.

  Uhura shook her head. “You’re already part of this. I recognize the style of the encryption.” She glanced at Spock. “You have already puzzled out, I’m sure, that in these unsettled times it has been…only logical for me and my Romulan counterpart to be in frequent, if unofficial, touch.”

  “Indeed.” Charvanek would hardly have been less logical than Uhura about it, and would be just as hungry for useful data from the other side.

  Charvanek was Spock’s oldest and closest not-quite-enemy. She was known to him since his days on Kirk’s Enterprise—she who had once been a fleet commander and then the consort of the late Praetor Narviat, and was now the head of Romulan Security. That Charvanek and Uhura were acting without Starfleet knowledge or permission was certain, but it was also certain that the issue would not truly bother either of them. “The needs of the many…” was a Romulan adage too.

  “I am not alone,” Uhura said to her Romulan counterpart. “Spock and Ruanek are here as well.”

  “Spock,” Charvanek said dryly. “That hardly surprises me. Events do seem to keep throwing us together.”

  Her voice was controlled, revealing little of her thoughts. But after the incident of the Watraii attack and rebuff, Spock thought, she surely had to trust him, at least as much as she trusted any non-Romulan. He said to her, “You did not contact this office merely to jest. Charvanek, if you have been contacting the admiral before this, you surely know that this office is as secure as anything devised by the Tal Shiar.”

  “I am well aware of that. Very well, I will say this and be as blunt as a Vulcan: I have grown disgusted with Ambassador T’Kala’s tantrums and other childishness and with what I believe humans call ‘tiptoeing around the truth.’”

  “And that truth is…?”

  There was the briefest pause. Then Charvanek said, with cold anger behind the mask of calm, “Romulus has undergone another attack. And yes, it was from the Watraii. This time they managed to destroy a base before retreating. Wait, though, don’t interrupt. There is worse than an unwarranted and cowardly attack. Not only have those dishonorable tetcharik”—Ruanek, overhearing, raised a startled eyebrow at that obscenity—“destroyed that base, they also managed to capture…” After an awkward pause, she continued, “Akkh, let us call it an artifact.”

  “An…artifact,” Spock echoed cautiously.

  “Yes.” The word was knife-edged. “An artifact that is so politically and historically important that it might as well be considered sacred.”

  “I understand. All cultures have such items. But what is this particular artifact?”

  “That,” Charvanek said, just as sharply, “I refuse to say.”

  If it is a relic of Romulan history and honor, why are you so reluctant to speak about it? “Or else, perhaps,” Spock returned carefully, “you are simply not sure about its true nature.”

  “I said that I refuse to say! Spock, that should suffice.”

  Ah, then you are in doubt about what it truly is. “I meant no insult.”

  She gave a fierce little gust of a sigh. “I know that. You never were malicious. But I also know how sly your words can be, Spock, you who have tricked me more than once. Yet what I do or do not know is not the issue. I will say only that it is essential for the sake of all the Romulans and the stability of the Romulan Star Empire that the artifact be returned.”

  Spock raised an eyebrow, considering. Anything that was so very important…Romulans, he knew, might revere relics of the past, but did not hold them as so close to sacred. And yet…

  Testing, he began, “I must wonder if what we are discussing might not be more than some merely historic relic, even one that might date from the time of the Sundering.”

  “Stop your prying!”

  “Charvanek, if you wish us to help you, we must have honesty from you. Does this mysterious artifact not also contain some vital data as well?”

  “Spock, you are too cunning for your own well-being.”

  And you, Charvanek, have by your very evasiveness just given me the information that I suspected.

  There was only one piece of data that could possibly be so important. “Charvanek, I am not trying to be cunning, nor do I wish harm to the Romulan people. You, of all, should know that by now. But I can only deduce by your very refusal to give me any facts that the artifact contains very valuable data indeed—possibly nothing less than the proof or, for that matter, the falsehood behind the Watraii claims.”

  She said nothing, neither confirming nor denying.

  “Therefore,” Spock continued into the tense silence, “I agree that it must be retrieved before there is outright war. We must also retrieve it before the Watraii can decipher whatever data it contains.”

  After another few seconds of silence, Charvanek volunteered warily, “I doubt that decryption will be that easy. While we do suspect it contains…what you suggested, no one, to the best of my knowledge, has ever found out what it contains.” Then she added with a touch of frustration, “I cannot leave my post, not with the situation as it is. And you, Vulcan though you are, are the most efficient, honest being I know. Spock, in the name of peace, I urge you to retrieve the artifact.”

  “Mind if I cut in?” Uhura asked. “Charvanek, I have a gamble to make with you.”

  “I am listening.” The Romulan’s voice was Vulcan-cool.

  “Who would you rather have retrieve the artifact—the Federation, which will use it as a bargaining chip to assure Romulan cooperation—and I will, of course, deny having said that—or these people whom you know you can trust?”

  “You presume much, my counterpart,” Charvanek said dryly. “But what do you want in exchange?”

  “One of our own is a Watraii captive.”

  A pause. “Very well, what do you want of me?”

  “We both have the coordinates of the Watraii homeworld. Starfleet does not. Not…exactly.”

  “Ah. I know how that game is played. They have received partial information to get them into the region but not to the exact world. And I will gamble that you want me to reveal only partial information as well.”

  Uhura leaned forward. “If Starfleet goes there in full force, you know as well as I what will happen.”

  “Fighting,” Charvanek said flatly. “And your hostage will no doubt be slain in the middle of it…and the artifact will be at risk as well. A problem. Uhura, understand this: I cannot withhold the truth for long. I can give you a lead of…akkh, realistically not more than two shipboard days.”

  “That will do,” Spock said. He did not add what he was thinking: If it takes long
er, Chekov will already be dead.

  “If anyone can work wonders,” Charvanek said, her voice fairly dripping with irony, “it will be you, Spock. Very well, you will have two days. Charvanek out.”

  With that, she broke the connection.

  For a moment, no one in the office spoke. The mission, Spock thought, had just gotten doubly complex. Now we must not only penetrate Watraii space, we must rescue Chekov and we must recover the Romulan artifact. As Dr. McCoy once said, “No one ever said life was fair.” Illogical or not, that statement did seem to fit the situation.

  “Well,” Ruanek finally said. “At least now we know why the Romulans broke off negotiations in such a hurry.”

  Uhura nodded. “There’s a good cover for our original mission: the recovery of a historic Romulan artifact. It means, though, that we’ll need a Romulan on the mission to verify that we get the right artifact.”

  She gave Ruanek a speculative glance.

  Ruanek frowned slightly at her. “I don’t think that I like where this is heading.”

  Uhura gave him her most dazzling smile, the smile that had melted the enmity of men of several species. “Why, it’s only logical. You are the only Romulan we know who is definitely on our side.”

  Ruanek sighed. “I cannot argue with logic. And never mind the fact that I have been living as a Vulcan of Vulcan for all these years. I know, like it or not, that there is no one else.”

  “Well, then!”

  “But—akkh, I also know that this isn’t a logical statement—but T’Selis is going to kill me for risking my life. Again.”

  Spock, wisely, said nothing.

  Seven

  Memory

  His dream made Karatek a boy again. That dawn, he had scratched off another day with an obsidian flake on a vein of exposed rock along the Forge. He had spent hours digging for food. Hunger had sharpened his focus, but weakened his time sense. Now, harsh rays of ruddy light slanted across the Forge, lower and lower as the day died in flames. If he could not outrace the falling night, he would be isolated in the desert without shelter. And he was so close, too, to completing his trial!

  He dashed across the Forge till his side was one long, throbbing ache from the speed of his heartbeat. There! He found the heap of rocks he had sheltered in for two nights now. When he had left it, only that dawn, it had been free of predators.

  He only hoped his heart and lungs and strength could make the best possible use of the last embers of red light on the red sand. He kept his eyes hyperfocused on the terrain, his feet feeling out the scarps of obsidian, like shards of bone jutting from the sand.

  If he stumbled now, he could die, of a severed artery if he hit a sharp obsidian edge, or of a broken bone, which would immobilize him, leaving him prey to denizens of the Forge, whose night eyes and ability to sense heat would detect him once night fell. Even if no predators came, as wind rushed down from the peaks, hammering the Forge, the temperature would plummet. To be caught unarmed and barely clothed on the Forge at night was to die. Unless Karatek could reach shelter, it would not matter whether he was two days, two hours, or two minutes from the end of his ordeal: he would not see another dawn.

  But there were predators other than those who hunted on four feet. As Karatek raced across the last smooth expanse of sand toward his refuge, his weight set off a s’gagerat, which had extended its long tendrils beneath the sand. Instantly, they snapped up around the deadly plant’s central core, big enough and fast enough to stop a full-grown sehlat running flat out.

  Small for his age, Karatek managed to slip through. But one forked strand lashed out, its thorns out to inject the powerful soporific that let the night-hunting plant trap its prey and drag it down for slow digestion.

  It struck only a glancing blow. Karatek managed to stagger free, reaching the safety of his piled rocks. When he had looked back, he had seen what few Vulcans ever lived to see: a s’gagerat engaged in the hunt, its tendrils fully extended, seeking its quarry. He vowed to come back and burn it out. Then, he collapsed into a drugged sleep that was more than half hallucination.

  In his dream, Karatek again saw a s’gagerat reach for its prey. This one was big enough to engulf the Mother World.

  Burn it! The thing exploded into a deadly blossom. He had time only for an instant of guilt—the bloom was beautiful—before he was running again, this time, one man lost in a crowd of Vulcans racing toward the shuttles that would take them offworld to the great ships.

  It was dark. It was cold. He had found no refuge.

  There was no refuge anywhere.

  Karatek woke, gasping. He lay motionless, breathing deeply until his biocontrol soothed his heart to its normal resting rate below two hundred.

  He put out his hand, but instantly knew better. T’Vysse had left their bed to attend their youngest child, T’Lysia, their second born during the exile. What if the control of Surak’s disciplines was not what the child truly needed? He knew T’Vysse longed to hold this latest daughter against the fears of night, but that was not Surak’s way. Was his way, then, a gift worth giving? The question was irrelevant: they had little else they had to give. She would be the last child T’Vysse would bear, T’Vysse who had never failed him or their people. They needed every healthy child to survive whatever kahs-wan ordeal old Rovalat could still create, here in the great ships of their exile. Where is your own control? Karatek asked himself. He invoked it, steadying his breathing. He wished he could touch T’Vysse’s sleek hair, as black as the desert rock, and feel her warmth. She would dispel the terror of his dream by helping him recall there was no logic in it, even though Healer T’Olryn, whom his son had married after a long and highly argumentative courtship, said otherwise.

  At the very least, Karatek should work in perfecting his own control. It was not, these days, as if he had that much else to do.

  When Karatek had requested leave 1.1 years ago from his duties as head of Shavokh’s council, he had expected many things. The ship’s command structure provided for an orderly rotation of duties: he had been tired; it was logical to put in for leave, especially if he wished to adapt for propulsion the crystals that continued to fascinate him.

  He had not expected to regret that he was now left out of decisions that he once would have taken the lead in making. Of course, he knew how illogical it was to wish that S’lovan, sent by his kinsman S’task to run Shavokh and—as Karatek suspected—to try to ensure that its overall management owed more to S’task and less to Surak, was not a superb officer. He had to admit that S’task had chosen well. But Karatek could not help wishing that he felt as necessary now as he had in the exhausting days when he had led, not just observed and remembered.

  He was growing weak, he thought. They all were. If they did not find a Minshara-class planet soon, the lighter gravity of the ships, their thinner air, with its pervasive traces of chemicals and radiation, and the constant sapping cold would produce only a sickly new generation. And whether there would be a generation after that, whether a generation after that would even be viable were both questions he had fought not to ask himself.

  Karatek rose. The ship’s cold seeped out from beneath the heavy tapestries that insulated him from cold blasts of recycled air. Through the thin rug, cabled and woven in a black and ochre te-Vikram pattern, the deck’s cold metal made his feet recoil. Once or twice, he had even seen frost on the deck, which could tear the flesh if one stepped unwisely. But he avoided it with practiced skill, and barely shivered at all now.

  His time sense told him it was the last watch before Shavokh’s “dawn,” while a glance at his radiation badge told him he had 3.2 days before his next treatment, and almost no time at all before T’Olryn reminded him.

  He knew that his life—and worse yet, the lives of his children, especially those born in space—would be shortened. No control that Surak had ever taught could tell him there was no pain in that.

  He knew he could not meditate, but another task remained. Stepping into the alcove he res
erved for meditation, he took the coronet from a box that, in defiance of all custom, he kept locked. He set the coronet on his head. Its filaments pierced his temples like microscopic thorns. He had grown used to that, too.

  “It is the third watch. As I make this record, ship’s crew has ventured out onto Shavokh’s hull for the first time since Technician T’Evoryn took a radiation burst and her body was consigned to space, even her katra lost.

  “Two hundred and thirty-five days ago, we paused to mine an asteroid our scanners indicated was rich in rare metal ores. It is now our goal to reinforce the ship’s hull still further and to create a barrier from behind which we will direct robotic arms to upgrade the reactor with components that should push our maximum speed up three-hundredths more toward light speed. Dissenters in ship’s council criticize the gain as too small to be worth the risk. Because of my prior role in helping to lead Shavokh, my knowledge of ships’ engines is no longer state-of-the-art.”

  S’lovan’s efficient leadership had freed Karatek to study astrophysics once more. He worked again in the propulsion laboratories to learn the developments made in the years of their exile—or journey—and knew he was of considerable use in speeding the ship.

  “I have been endeavoring to compensate and made some small progress, including this last, disputed upgrade. After all, we approach light speed in increments; nevertheless, we approach it.

  “The High Command, I know, has said that the speed of light cannot be exceeded in normal space. But the High Command is back on Vulcan, and there is much we have done already that the High Command would say was not possible.

  “A disturbing accompaniment to this latest discovery of metals is an unprecedented alliance in council between the last of the Seleyan adepts and the politicians who, back on Vulcan, we would have called technocrats. I remember them from my days in the Vulcan Space Institute: they are wily, intelligent, and very patient. It is these last two qualities—which I must consider virtues even in a technocrat—that may have earned them the adepts’ cooperation. Last year, when pirates attacked our fleet’s rear guard, we were boarded, but two adepts, working in concert, projected a fear at the intruders. I do not know what they saw: the underpriest to whom I spoke said it was their version of the Eater of Souls. We might have sustained even greater damage except that Rea’s Helm was able to turn and, using the weapons systems that had already received intermediate improvements, rout our enemies. We had to halt engines to make repairs. We must now make up that lost time.”