The trials of the Romulan prisoners were swift and enacted with little fanfare. The charges against them were a masterwork of balance between justice and truth unspoken. At no point were their intended targets specifically mentioned.
Saavik submitted the required depositions anonymously. Though she was not required to testify in person, she nevertheless found herself in attendance at the hearing that determined T’Vaakis’s fate.
Of the other eighteen taken into custody, the two who had assisted Narak in murdering the four Hellguard survivors managed to commit ritual suicide while Vulcan authorities conveniently looked the other way. Twelve others, not surprisingly, elected to remain on Vulcan and serve out terms for espionage of varying degrees of severity. The remaining four, essentially middlemen along the web, were exchanged for Federation prisoners held by the empire. An unsettling light in their eyes suggested they were trusting enough to believe that this would, if not necessarily make them heroes to their people, at least guarantee them some sort of safety when they returned home.
Of those four, only one made a public statement. She had extended family, including two young children, and it was for them she had agreed to return to the empire. She made it sound as if she looked forward to returning to the arms of her loved ones, but the implication was that she was sacrificing herself for the family name. Her name would be stricken from the public record, so that theirs might be redeemed.
“It’s lunacy!” was Galina Mironova’s opinion, as the crew of Chaffee followed the proceedings on the public feeds. “It’s a wonder they haven’t gone extinct as a species with all their different codes of honor and reasons to die for them.”
“Maybe that’s why they have such large families,” Esparza muttered under his breath. “The eldest go into the star service, the middle ones are thrown to the wolves so that the youngest can inherit the estate.”
Mironova eyed him with a new appreciation. He gave the impression of being a bumbler, but there was considerable insight at work beneath that unruly thatch of hair.
There was no such light in T’Vaakis’s eyes, but rather a disconcerting lack of affect. She said little during her hearing, other than to answer the questions put to her in as few words as possible. It became quite clear that she’d known nothing more about the operation than that another would be sent to perform certain actions while using her name and her identifying characteristics. Wisely, or perhaps only naïvely, she had asked no questions, merely followed instructions. Under intense questioning, including a mind-meld to which she gave assent, neither the name “Sarek” nor even “Saavik” evidenced any recognition. When given a choice between detention on Vulcan and return to the empire, her answer was succinct.
“It matters not.”
It was not a holding cell in the strictest sense. Yes, there was a force field and a guard beyond it, but the accommodations within were as pleasant as they could be to one who knew she could not step beyond them. From the look in T’Vaakis’s eyes, it did not matter either way.
Saavik removed Narak’s Honor Blade from her belt. She had not submitted it with the other weapons she had relieved him of in the desert and, curiously, no one seemed to have noticed. She would not, of course, give it to T’Vaakis as long as she was detained, but she wanted her to know what had become of it.
“As I understand your culture, it would be illogical for you to return to the empire,” Saavik began. “Nevertheless, the charges against you—”
“—give me the choice of a brief detention between these walls and then ‘freedom’ to go where I wish,” T’Vaakis finished with a baleful look. But she was very young and could not hold her emotions in for long. The dark eyes filled with tears. “He groomed me for this, from the time I was a child. I have known no other life. That is hardly ‘freedom.’”
Saavik, more skilled at masks, revealed no trace of the anger, the envy gnawing at her. How dare this pampered child complain of having a father who, whatever his motives, at least was there for her?
“It must seem as if he has abandoned you,” Saavik managed to say past the constriction in her throat.
“What would you know of it?” the girl demanded, dashing the tears off her face, grief turned to rage in an instant.
More than you can possibly imagine! Saavik thought but did not trust herself to say.
“I am completely alone,” T’Vaakis went on. “What does it matter whether I live or die?”
What would adolescence be without self-absorption? Saavik wondered, slipping the Honor Blade back into her belt. Until the green haze cleared from her vision, she did not entirely know what she might do with it if it were still in her hand.
“Dead you will at least be freed of self-pity,” she said when she could control her voice.
It was like a splash of cold water. Saavik marveled at the play of emotions across a face that was the mirror image of her own. It was as if for the first time T’Vaakis was stepping outside herself, allowing that someone else’s life might be more arduous than her own, considering what it might have been like to have no father at all.
“W-what was your life like, growing up without him?”
Oh, no, little one! You don’t get access to that so easily! Saavik thought. What she said was, “Live, and someday I might tell you.”
With that she motioned to the guard outside to release the force field. She ought not to have looked back, but she did.
“I will keep the Honor Blade against that eventuality” were her parting words.
Tough love, a human might call it. Then again, a human might have wrapped the girl in an embrace, called her “little sister,” assured her that she was not alone “as long as we have each other.” Humans!
Apparently Saavik was not to leave the facility unimpeded. T’Saan met her in the outer courtyard.
“Nicely played,” she said, a touch of admiration in her tone.
Inwardly Saavik cursed herself in all the languages she knew.
“Of course. I should have realized the cell was monitored. Further proof I would be of poor service as a spy.”
“Starfleet’s gain, our loss, though you can always change your mind,” T’Saan said diffidently.
“If that is all …” Saavik eyed the outer gate, and the impression it gave that once she was clear of this place, she would be free.
“You are kin, by the way, you and she,” T’Saan said to her retreating back. “We’ve done the blood work.”
The green haze again crossed her vision. She turned, seething, her hand inadvertently on the Honor Blade, set in the place where her own primitive Hellguard blade usually rested. “You had no right!”
“She is our prisoner; that gave us the right. And Starfleet has your records,” T’Saan said with unassailable logic. “Whether or not Narak was the source, you share the same father. And logically, given that he raised her, groomed her, then came seeking you—”
“Kroykah!”
There was only so much one person could bear. As soon as the word was out of her mouth, Saavik found a dozen ways to apologize for it, but stopped. How was she to read the expression on T’Saan’s face? Had no one ever told her to be silent before? Surely not anyone younger, surely not since she had found her place in the V’Shar. In any event, she said nothing further and made no move to stop Saavik from leaving.
She passed through the outer gate unmolested, her heels clicking furiously on the paving stones beyond. She would walk unseeing for the better part of an hour before she accepted the possibility that, given who it was who had made the suggestion, it might as easily be another V’Shar trick as truth.
In time she would inquire further, only to discover that there was no record of the nineteenth detainee in any database, under any name or designation, at least not to someone with her computer skills. Someday, perhaps, she would ask Spock to assist her. For now, T’Vaakis had ceased to exist. Had she made a choice, or had it been made for her? Returned to the empire, absorbed into the V’Shar—who better t
o be transformed into a mole?—or, like her purported sibling, allowed nominally to go free? It was not for Saavik to know.
Captain’s Personal Log, Galina Mironova recording. Dress uniforms, ship scrubbed and polished down to the last bolt and rivet. We are entertaining guests tonight. As we began and ended this mission from Vulcan space, most will be Vulcan scientists and diplomats, including Ambassador Sarek and his wife, though we will also have a live feed to Federation HQ on Earth to discuss the future of Deema III. I shall be hosting a small reception, along with Doctor Mikal, Lieutenant Loth, and as many of the science team as can be trusted not to fall into the punch bowl, as we introduce the Federation Council to Worm and hir people, prefatory to setting up a permanent scientific presence, and an at least temporary consulate on hir world.
“You’re blushing,” Mikal stage-whispered shamelessly when Mironova finally managed to tear herself away from Sarek’s aura with the excuse that she needed to give her other guests equal time.
“I am not!” she retorted, glowering at him. “The reds and oranges in your robe are so damn bright they’re reflecting on my face.”
“Does that explain the giggling too?”
Yes, she had been giggling. Sarek tended to have that effect on the females of several species. It had been said that a good part of his success as a diplomat rested in precisely that innate ability. Despite feeling like a schoolgirl again, however, Mironova had managed to be completely professional when it came to discussing the science of the thing.
There was, indeed, to be a permanent scientific presence on Deema III, led by Lieutenant Commander Palousek, senior member of the original science team after Doctor Mikal and Lieutenant Saavik, which would do a thorough study once the interspatial rifts opened again in approximately three hundred seventy-five days.
“The goal,” Doctor Mikal explained during his presentation to the gathering, “will be to ascertain how many of the rifts are fixed, that is to say, opening at the same time and leading to the same point of origin, and how many are variable. While it would be premature to speculate just how valuable the fixed ones may prove in terms of perhaps finding a shortcut or shortcuts to distant regions of our space or unexplored regions, their measurements will be taken in exhaustive detail …”
And so on and so forth. While the guests were attentive, Mikal’s presentation was mercifully brief. Everyone knew that the highlight of the evening was to be the communiqué from Worm.
The distance to Deema III made live communication impossible. This had been explained to Worm by Lieutenant Loth before Chaffee departed Deema III. At least, Loth had begun to explain, but Worm had interrupted him.
Yes, we know this. Thus it must be, for now. In time, we will communicate by means less primitive than your technology. This is not a judgment, merely an observation.
More of a linguist than a scientist, Loth was at first not certain he understood. But when he allowed himself, as a telepath can, to see the universe through Worm’s perspective …
“I was tempted initially, ma’am, to say ‘through Worm’s eyes,’” he explained, managing not to stutter despite his nervousness in the presence of such luminaries when Amanda, always interested in language in all its forms, had asked him, “except of course that the being doesn’t have eyes. Through Worm’s perspective, then. The Deemanot don’t exactly see the universe as absent time, but the passage of time is less important to them, apparently, than it is to us. I’m making a muddle of this, aren’t I, ma’am?”
“You’re doing splendidly, Lieutenant,” Amanda said, an encouraging hand on his arm. “Do continue.”
Drunk on her words without ever having gone near the punch bowl, Loth blithered blissfully on in the intermission between Mikal’s presentation and Worm’s.
The reception was being held in Chaffee’s cargo bay, the largest open space in the small ship, which had been cleared of cargo (the junior crew’s grumbling about sharing their already cramped quarters with relocated ship’s stores had been resolved by granting shore leave to everyone but the science team and a handful of cadets drafted to mingle with trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres) and tastefully decorated for the occasion. Viewscreens had been placed about at intervals and, as it turned out that prior to switching to sciences, Lieutenant Ta’oob had held a degree in acoustics, the sound system was flawless. When at last Worm’s transmission came onscreen, there was a barely suppressed gasp from the audience, even the Vulcans, and the crew who had met and interacted with the Deemanot in person.
The acoustics, it should be explained, had required the synchronization of several technologies. First was a mind-link between Worm and Loth where Loth, connected to the latest in electroencephalopathy technology, had allowed his brain waves to be monitored and transcribed into electronic impulses, which were then encoded as sound waves, which were subsequently translated into the spoken word. Small wonder that Amanda, linguist, etymologist, and teacher, was fascinated. Saavik, meanwhile, was almost envious.
It was fair to say almost. In a different reality, it would have been she, not Loth, who had served as interlocutor this time as well as the first. But envy was illogical. She watched and listened to the transmission, as intrigued as everyone else.
“Persons of the United Federation of Planets,” Worm’s “speech” began, “we greet you with respect and hope.”
Onscreen, the being was a looming presence, tastefully framed and lit by the best existing technology, resplendently iridescent, hir colors changing with hir speech, from the basic Deemanot earthworm-reddish-brown through a rainbow of golds, greens, blues, and violets, each color representing a nuance of mood. The voice, while computer generated, possessed warmth and a touch of the dry humor those who had met Worm in person recognized immediately.
“Ours has been an outlier’s existence, awaiting contact from our brethren in the larger universe,” the voice continued, as the being undulated slightly, hir body language synchronous with the words. “Whether it was you or someone other was not for us to determine and, defenseless as we are, such an encounter with beings who were not like us might have had a very different outcome. In brief, we are grateful it was your kind that got here first.
“Our world in and of itself offers nothing that innumerable other worlds cannot offer in greater volume and specificity. Mineral wealth, interesting scenery, plant life, essential location in a quadrant buzzing with ever-shifting hostilities—these things are not all that important, after all. Our value as a member of your Federation lies in a certain curiosity about our species—intelligent worms, imagine that!—but primarily because what happens in the space surrounding our otherwise unremarkable little planet intrigues the explorers in you.
“We do not judge. We, rather, say that the first of your members who have made themselves known to us have piqued our curiosity, and thus we welcome your presence in our system, on our world. Most important, reaching into the minds of those named Saavik, Mikal, Mironova, and, finally, Loth tells us that we can trust you and your kind. As you continue to study our artifacts, which will tell you of our connectedness with the universe, you will understand that all of this was foretold, and so we look forward to your presence in our future. Yes.”
With that final word, the being nodded. A human gesture? No one from Chaffee had seen Worm or any of the other Deemanot nod before. There was still so much to learn.
“I sometimes wonder,” Amanda said, “just how many worlds the Federation can encompass before it becomes unwieldy. But then I listen to something like this and I think it’s not necessarily only about physics or even politics, but about some overarching interconnectedness. But then, my husband will tell you I’m a hopeless romantic.”
“Husbands are like that,” Mironova agreed. “I had one once. Useless appendage, in my case. You’ve been luckier.”
“Indeed,” Amanda agreed.
The two women had bonded immediately, not only in their admiration of Sarek. At the moment they were watching Saavik making her
way through the crowd, congratulating “the kids,” as Mikal had taken to calling them, on their meticulous work, introducing herself to Loth, who’d begun to stutter again, asking him detailed questions about his sequential melds with Worm and the other Deemanot. Finally, as the two older women watched, her path crossed Mikal’s.
“Interesting young man,” Amanda observed. “Sarek seems quite taken with him.”
“He has his moments,” Mironova acknowledged. “But, honestly, she deserves better.”
Amanda eyed her appraisingly. “You’re not a telepath,” she said.
Mironova twinkled at her. “One doesn’t necessarily have to be.”
The science team gathered around Saavik, universally glad to see her again, eager to tell her what they’d accomplished on the return to Deema III. If any of them were tempted to ask her about the rumors flying through subspace in her absence, the awareness that Captain Mironova would have their hides if they stepped over that line kept those questions unasked.
Not for the first time, Saavik was simultaneously gratified and puzzled by their attention. When one has lacked a sense of place in the formative years, one is never certain of one’s welcome later on.
“They adore you,” Mikal said, sidling up beside her—a signal to the others to go play somewhere else—and offering her a champagne flute, which she took out of general politeness; the substance it contained had not, in her experience, ever had any effect on her mood. “The women see you as a role model; the men all want to bed you. Maybe some of the women do as well, but at least—”
“And you, I note, remain as incorrigible as ever,” she said dryly.
“Not true! You haven’t read my most recent paper, have you?”
She confessed she had not, which compelled him to escort her to the nearest console to show her.
“‘Observations of Interspatial Rifts Recorded in the Deema System and Artifacts Gathered Therefrom’ by Mikal, Palousek, Graana, Jaoui, Ta’oob, Esparza, and Cheung,” she read, scanning the content in less time than it took Mikal to finish his champagne. “Impressive.”
Star Trek: Unspoken Truth Page 29
