However, his announcement prompted more questions. It was Regia Maldonado who asked, “So the Romulans will be represented at the summit?”
Kant nodded. “Your powers of deduction remain ordinary, Regia. Yes, since the future of the Romulan Empire is one of the primary goals of the summit, it was felt that the Romulan government should have a voice.”
Ozla asked, “Jorel, there are several indications that Tal’Aura’s on her way out. Is including her in the summit the Federation’s way of supporting her in light of her dwindling support on Romulus?”
“Including her in the summit is the Federation’s way of including her in the summit,” Kant said. “That’s it.”
Kav was suddenly back in his small office. Standing across from him in the small space between his desk and the door was a person he never thought he’d see again.
“Brek? Is that you?”
Brek chim Glamok nodded. Kav stood up and slammed his arm against Brek’s. “I don’t believe it! They declared you dead!”
“There were many times, my friend, that I wish I was.”
“How did you get here? What’re you doing here? You should be back on Tellar!”
“Kav, I’m only here—I’m only alive—because of Ambassador Emra and Zaarok.”
At that, Kav almost swallowed his own tongue. “Zaarok? You mean the Tzelnira Zaarok?”
“That’s who I mean, yes. He sent me because he needs our help.”
“How would the Tellarite News Service help—?”
Brek spit at him. “No, you idiot, the Federation’s help!”
“Spare me your anger, Brek!” Kav spit right back. “You disappeared months ago. You were declared dead. Phant almost ripped all his fur out.”
“I know—and I apologize for that. It has been—difficult.”
Kav nodded in understanding. “Of course. What is it you’ve been asked to do?”
“Zaarok has a son who is dying. He was diagnosed with cal-tai a year ago.”
Frowning, Kav said, “I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s something that only Tzenkethi get, apparently—some kind of growth in their spines. They had been hoping the diagnosis was wrong, but apparently all the best doctors in the coalition checked him over. The only cure that is known is a surgical procedure that removes the growth.”
“So where does the Federation come in?”
Brek stared at Kav. “There’s only one doctor who has ever successfully performed that surgery—a Starfleet doctor named Rebecca Emmanuelli, who was a prisoner during the Tzenkethi War.”
“So let me see if I understand this,” Nan said as she ran her hand through her paper-white hair, convinced that it was all going to fall out before her second year in office was halfway done. “The son of a Tzelnira is sick, the only doctor who can save him is in Starfleet, and the Tzenkethi are willing to ship the boy here for the operation?”
Sitting across from her were Esperanza, Secretary Safranski, Kant Jorel, Z4 Blue, Myk Bunkrep, Councillor Strovos of Ardana, Admiral Akaar, and Chirurgeon P’Trell, the head of Starfleet Medical. Nan had been surprised to see that P’Trell was Caitian, considering that he had an Andorian physician’s title, but Esperanza had explained before he’d arrived that, although he was Caitian by species, he was born and raised on Andor and studied medicine there.
Esperanza said, “I wish it was that simple, ma’am. The Tzenkethi aren’t willing to ship the boy anywhere. It’s just this one Tzelnira that’s trying to make it work.”
“Ma’am,” Z4 said, “I’m pretty sure this is what Emra was trying to see you about back in January.”
“And how is this supposed to work?” Nan asked Jorel.
“Brek said a ship would be entering the Temecklia system in ten days carrying the patient.”
Nan stared intently at the Bajoran. “You believe him?”
“In general, no. Brek’s a sensationalist, and he takes ridiculous risks. But he’s also spent nine months in a Tzenkethi prison on Kliradon, where they aren’t known for treating Federation species with anything like kindness.”
“All the more reason why he’d say anything to get out,” Safranski said.
Nan looked at the Rigelian. “You think it’s a setup?”
“No, ma’am, but I think we should proceed as if we’re expecting it to be.”
Z4 said, “I can’t imagine it is a setup, ma’am. This was telegraphed almost a year ago. Yes, we should be careful, but the Tzenkethi don’t strike me as being this sloppy.”
“Reality tends to be a lot more sloppy than constructed plans,” Esperanza added.
Nan smirked. “Occam’s razor at its dullest. All right.” She turned to Akaar. “Admiral, can we meet that ship?”
“The Sugihara is in the area. I trust Captain Demitrijian to be able to smell a trap.”
“All right, get it over there, and let’s see what happens.” She turned to P’Trell. “Assuming this is on the level, how soon can this doctor get here?”
P’Trell’s ears flattened. “That may be a bit of a problem, Madam President.”
“Why, where is she?”
“Her location is not the problem. She’s stationed at Starbase 1, in orbit of Earth.”
Nan frowned. “So what is the problem?”
“She refuses to perform the procedure.”
That surprised Nan. Her eyes wide, her mouth constricting into a line under her nose, she said, “Say that again, please.”
“She refuses—”
Slamming a hand on her desk, Nan said, “What the hell happened to ‘First, do no harm’?”
Esperanza looked pained. “Ma’am, Dr. Emmanuelli was a prisoner of the Tzenkethi for four years. She was captured during the war, and they kept her alive because of her skill as a surgeon, and while a prisoner she saved fourteen Tzenkethi from cal-tai. They told the Federation that she’d died in prison so they could keep her out of the prisoner exchanges after the armistice. A civilian group called Liberation Watch obtained evidence that she was still alive, which they turned over to Starfleet. The Saratoga went to investigate further, and the Tzenkethi turned her over rather than risk another war.”
Nan relented. “Yeah, okay, I can see why she’d be a little peevish.” She sighed. “How old is this boy, anyhow?”
“Only two,” Z4 said.
P’Trell added, “But Tzenkethi mature to full growth when they’re five, so that’s not as young as you might think.”
“Chirurgeon—” She hesitated. “Ghee, can anyone else perform this operation?”
Again, the flat ears. “Tzenkethi biology is not common knowledge. Dr. Emmanuelli never published anything about her work on Tzenketh because she didn’t wish to relive the experience.”
“Can’t blame her for that, either. So there’s no one else?”
“It’s a spinal operation, Madam President. A single wrong move, and the patient will die. Even Dr. Emmanuelli didn’t have a one-hundred-percent success rate—although she saved fourteen, seven died under her care as well.”
Softly, Esperanza said, “Sixty-seven-percent odds aren’t bad.”
“No.” P’Trell fixed his gaze on Esperanza. “But those odds are reduced to less than ten percent with any other surgeon.” Turning back to Nan, he said, “Madam President, I have tried to convince Dr. Emmanuelli that this is the right thing to do. I’ve done everything short of ordering her to, and I’ve not done that only because she’s made it clear that she will resign before she followed that order, and I’m not about to lose a fine physician over this.”
Nan drummed her fingers on the desk. “Admiral, what’s the Sugihara’s travel time back to Earth from Temecklia?”
“Five days.”
She nodded. “All right, then. We won’t know a damn thing for ten days, and we’ve got two weeks to convince Dr. Emmanuelli of the error of her ways. Chirurgeon, keep talking to her.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Admiral, get the Sugihara out there. And—”
> Jorel interrupted. “Excuse me, ma’am, but there is one other thing.”
“What?”
“My staff has picked up some reports from some of the Tzenkethi press. Until Brek showed up this morning, I didn’t really think anything of it, but—”
“But what?”
Jorel tugged on his earring, a gesture that suddenly reminded Nan of Xeldara. “They’re talking about how the Federation is attempting to kidnap Tzelnira Zaarok’s son in an attempt to start another war—oh, and that the summit next week is so you and the Klingons can plan the invasion of Tzenketh that will follow your snatching of the boy.”
Nan leaned back in her chair.
Esperanza said, “Now this seems a little more like a setup.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Z4 said. “Zaarok’s gone rogue, I’m sure of that. He couldn’t get it done in January, so he pulled Emra back, but now he’s desperate. He’s high enough among the ministers to have the ability to do this quietly, but if someone else picked up on it, they’d be more than happy to use it as Federation propaganda.”
“Honestly,” Jorel said, “it’s only different from what the Tzenkethi press says about the Federation insofar as it has some vague bearing on reality for a change.”
Nan chuckled mirthlessly. “So we’ve got what is at worst a setup for an attack on the Federation, and at best an anti-Federation propaganda opportunity for the Tzenkethi.”
Esperanza nodded. “That about sums it up.”
Standing up, Nan said, “Well, I can’t kill myself worrying about what the Tzenkethi press think of me—I have enough problems worrying about what the people in Jorel’s room think. And ultimately, the only thing I really give a damn about is saving a two-year-old boy’s life. Let’s get this moving and see where it takes us.”
“Thank you, Madam President,” Esperanza said, and everyone got up. However, while most folks headed for the exit to the turbolifts, Esperanza and Myk, who hadn’t said anything the entire meeting, approached the president’s desk.
“What’s up?” Nan asked.
Myk said, “Ma’am, I’ve been looking into something for the last few weeks, and I think it’s something you’ll want to mention at the summit.”
Nan shot Esperanza a look. “If we have to add something else—”
Esperanza held up a hand. “I know, I know, the Diplomatic Corps will put arsenic in your soup or whatever horrible retribution diplomats visit on sitting presidents when they annoy them, but I think this is worth it.”
“Actually, they’ll probably just talk me to death.” Nan looked at Myk. “What is it?”
Myk handed her a padd. Nan read it over, then looked at the Zakdorn woman. “You sure about this?”
She nodded. “That’s why this is so last-minute—Esperanza said she wouldn’t bring it to you until I was absolutely sure, but I’ve spoken with about a dozen people who are involved in the project, including some of the Klingons. This is for real, but it’s in danger of falling apart at the seams unless the governments step in.”
Nan turned to Esperanza. “You think Martok’ll go for it?”
“I know he won’t if you don’t ask him.”
Smiling, Nan said, “Yeah. All right, I’ll work this into the third meeting. I pull this out in either of the first two, I risk scuttling the whole thing.” She looked at Myk. “Good work on this.”
Favoring her with a rare smile, Myk said, “Thank you, Madam President.”
Martok, son of Urthog, head of the High Council, chancellor of the Klingon Empire, wasn’t sure what to expect from Federation President Nan Bacco.
He had dealt directly with her predecessor, Min Zife, during the Tezwa crisis and had found him to be an irritating coward—about what one would expect from someone elected by the masses. Martok had always found democracy puzzling; power came from the judgment of one’s peers, not the adulation of one’s lessers.
Prior to this, his impressions of Bacco had come mostly from that petaQ K’mtok. Zife’s going straight to Martok during Tezwa had given the hardliners on the High Council all the excuse they’d needed to call for replacing Ambassador Lantar with K’mtok, an ally of Martok’s biggest enemy on the council, Kopek.
Tellingly, K’mtok’s impressions of Bacco had changed as time had gone on. At first, K’mtok—whose reports had mostly gone to Kopek—had spoken of her dismissively and categorized her as weak. However, more recently he was reporting to the entire High Council that Bacco was a shrewd and worthy leader.
Over the past few days, they had sat in a dull, beige-colored room on Mount Dalwik, a high peak on Grisella. The room, like the planet itself, was a neutral party in galactic politics. The Grisella government had agreed to host the summit in the hopes of fostering peace, which was one of several reasons why the empire had had little use for the Grisella in general.
Each leader had been permitted two guards. Two of Martok’s personal guards now stood at attention behind him, just as two Starfleet security officers stood behind Bacco, and two centurions stood behind Tal’Aura. Aside from that, they had remained undisturbed during the session, for which Martok was grateful. The presence of Federation journalists had annoyed Martok—Klingon news-gathering organizations were not permitted on such trips—but he recognized it as a necessary evil when dealing with the Federation, and he didn’t mind as long as they stayed out of his way. Mostly they had, thanks to the chancellor’s personal guard.
The summit had brought Martok around to the same conclusion about the Federation president that K’mtok had reached. Bacco understood the Klingon heart but was not willing to let that get in the way of serving her people.
About Tal’Aura, Martok had fewer kind words. She was quiet, uncommunicative, and spoke mostly in vague terms about her vision for the Romulan Empire, none of which seemed possible with the support she had. Martok hadn’t realized how much of the Romulan economy depended on labor produced by Remans; with them removed from the equation, mostly to Klorgat IV, the Romulan people were suffering.
To make matters worse, Tal’Aura’s voice reminded Martok for some reason of that of his late wife Sirella. To hear something even similar to his beloved’s voice coming out of a Romulan just made his blood boil.
Martok thought the final session was over, allowing him to return to his people with something like a victory. Martok had agreed that the empire’s expansionist policies would cease—not a difficult concession to give, as the empire’s losses since the war were such that expansion was proving problematic—and in return the Federation renewed several trade agreements and opened a few new ones, including more extensive technology sharing, something that had been beneficial to both nations in the years since the Khitomer Accords. In addition, Martok reaffirmed that, even with the move to Klorgat IV, he intended to honor the agreement made regarding the Remans and that the empire would withdraw from its role as protector of the Remans at the agreed-upon date, which was three weeks from this summit.
Bacco then said, “There is one more thing I would like to discuss, Chancellor. It’s not something that was on the agenda, and I’ll understand if you don’t want to, but I believe it’s important.”
Martok smiled. “The schedule for this meeting was due to the labors of the High Council and Ambassador K’mtok’s office. I have no need to keep fidelity to their work, Madam President.”
Bacco smiled right back. Martok noticed that she didn’t consult with Tal’Aura. From what he’d been told, mostly by Alexander Rozhenko, including Tal’Aura had not been Bacco’s idea any more than most of the Klingon side of the agenda had been Martok’s, and had mostly come about due to the Romulan ambassador, Kalavak, lobbying several Federation councillors. I wonder if Bacco’s council vexes her as much as mine does me, he thought with an internal laugh.
“Are you at all familiar, Chancellor,” Bacco said, “with an organization known as the Matter of Everything? They’re a civilian group, not affiliated with any government, and they include several Federation experts, as we
ll as some prominent Cardassian and Klingon scientists, who are studying various space anomalies and trying to tie them together into a theory about the structure of the universe. I believe the Klingons in the group call it HapHoch.”
The first name was unfamiliar to Martok, but the second was, and his face soured. “Madam President, HapHoch was condemned by the Science Institute for—”
“I’m familiar with the condemnation, Chancellor—in fact, I’ve read it. It says that the HapHoch violates every tenet of scientific inquiry and is an obscene investigation into matters best left alone. There’s only one problem: It’s a project that the Science Institute actually pursued about five years ago. Then, suddenly, the project was shut down, and its head—a woman named B’Ekara—was fired from the institute. She’s with MOE now, and the reason why all that happened was because she brought in the theories of someone else who’s now part of MOE.”
Martok felt a growl build in his throat. He knew some of this, of course, from when the institute’s condemnation was reported to the High Council. He hadn’t given it much thought at the time and had simply assumed that the institute’s condemnation was for a good reason, and so he and the council had agreed to banning further research on the topic. Until Bacco spelled it out, he couldn’t even remember exactly what it was they’d condemned, only that it had happened. “Madam President, I fail to see—”
Bacco, however, refused to be interrupted. “The scientist in question is named Kleissu—he’s a Mizarian.”
Now the growl was getting bigger. Mizarians were the vermin of the galaxy. Their world had been conquered dozens of times in the last hundred years alone, and the empire refused to have any dealings with that species.
“Chancellor, I read over these people’s work on the way here. They might have something. If it keeps going on this track, they might be able to tell us about the way the universe works, how it’s held together, what keeps it from flying apart. It’ll probably take years, and may not even be done in either of our lifetimes—but honestly, is this the kind of thing you want to ban just because you don’t like one of the people in the group?”
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