[Star Trek TNG] - Double Helix Omnibus

by Peter David

Mella Cwan smiled back at him, affection and sadness illuminating her eyes. “Lord Governor…how it grieves me to see you like this.”

  No more than it grieves me, Thul thought bitterly. But what he said was, “Please, my lady…I am no longer a governor; that exalted position has been stripped from me. I am once again General Thul. It is the penalty for ambition.”

  Her brow knotted over the bridge of her nose. “And a long penalty it is,” she replied. “A lifetime…”

  “Is very long,” he agreed. “But the worst part of my imprisonment is not its length in years, but the knowledge that I will never share any of them with you—as I surely would have if my plan had borne fruit.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “If only your brother had not been so stubborn when I came to him in his throne chamber…”

  “He is stubborn,” Mella Cwan agreed. “But he is also the emperor. No one can oppose his wishes.”

  That wasn’t what Thul wanted to hear. “True, you can’t oppose them,” he began, “but surely, there is a way for you—us—to have our hearts’ desire short of actual defiance.”

  The emperor’s sister tilted her head, a hint of wariness in her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  Careful, he thought. You won’t get another chance like this one. “Why,” he said, “only that not every flower flourishes in sunlight. Some live in shadows, and smell that much more sweetly for it.”

  Her dark eyes widened as understanding dawned. “You speak of an illicit affair? Between you and me?”

  Thul smiled sadly. “Only in the absence of the marriage I would have preferred. But if that is denied to us, must we give up everything? Do we not deserve some small measure of happiness?”

  Mella Cwan drew a shuddering breath as she considered it. “You ask much, General.”

  “I dare much,” the prisoner said, coming within a hair’s breadth of the energy barrier to prove it.

  “If we were ever exposed…” she said, her voice trailing off into the grimmer realms of imagination.

  He held up a hand. “Don’t think about that,” he insisted. “Think about us, my dear. Think about our being together at last.”

  The Emperor’s sister frowned. “You’re right,” she told him. “I cannot live in fear. I must think about my happiness.”

  “Exactly,” Thul replied.

  “I must think about the two of us.”

  “Yes,” he said encouragingly.

  Mella Cwan’s expression became resolute. “I must think of a way to free you,” she decided.

  He nodded. “I would never have asked it of you, my lady…but clearly, it is the only way.”

  She bit her lip in a very unimperial way. “It will take time. I have never done anything like this before.”

  “I could make suggestions,” Thul offered. “I know people who can arrange almost anything for latinum.”

  The emperor’s sister smiled. “Latinum will not be a problem.” She reached a hand lovingly toward his face, almost touching the energy barrier herself. “As long as I know that when you get out, you’ll be mine.”

  “I’ll be yours,” he told her. It wasn’t the first promise he had ever broken, nor would it be the last.

  A sound came from the far end of the corridor. It was the guard, no doubt, telling them that he didn’t dare give them any more time—not even for all the latinum he could carry.

  Mella Cwan pulled her hood up. “Have courage,” she said.

  Thul smiled a thin smile. He thought again of his bastard son, whose death at the hands of the Federation cried out to him for vengeance. “I will,” he assured the emperor’s sister. “For is courage not the first virtue?”

  And I am nothing, he thought, if not a virtuous man.

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