“Nothing, Captain,” the crew member said.
“Steady…steady, boys. Keep scanning.” The captain gave Valkris a poisonous glance. “I thought you people were reliable. Where the hell is he?”
“He has been here for some time. I can feel his presence.”
“Don’t give me your Klingon mumbo-jumbo! There ain’t another vessel in this whole damned sector!”
Valkris noticed the reaction among the crew to what their captain had said, and by it she understood that none but he, on this nominally Federation ship, had known till now who or what she was.
“Put me on the hailing frequency,” Valkris said, ignoring his impertinence. Nothing could affect her or offend her now.
“Sure,” the captain said, sourly and sarcastically, “whatever games you want to play.” He opened the channel for her, and nodded that it was ready.
Valkris grasped the end of her headcloth, using her uninjured right hand, and drew it slowly aside.
The crew reacted uneasily to her appearance, their recent suspicions confirmed, new fears engendered. Renegades they might be, but they were renegades within the Federation, still a part of it. Valkris’ people were their antagonists, unknown and dangerous.
Approaching the transmitter, Valkris moved from shadows into light.
“Commander Kruge, this is Valkris. I have obtained the Federation data, and I am ready to transmit.”
“Well done, Valkris. Stand by.”
Everyone in the control room, even the captain, started at the rough, powerful voice that crashed out of the speaker. The voice spoke a few words which only Valkris recognized, for they were in a Klingon language. Now knowing precisely what Kruge planned, she turned toward the viewport, watched, and waited.
“Oh, my gods,” one of the crew members whispered.
Like a ghost, like a creature of mist and fog, the Klingon fighter glowed into existence before the renegade merchant ship, very close, threatening. The Klingon craft had the same effect as its master’s powerful voice.
“What the hell…?” the merchant captain said.
Valkris herself had never seen the cloaking device in action before. It impressed and fascinated her. She watched carefully until the ship had taken complete and solid shape.
“Transmit data,” Commander Kruge said.
Valkris withdrew the data record from an inner pocket of her robe and inserted it into the transmission enclosure. The monitor blurred with the high-speed transmission. Valkris could not resolve the images, but she knew every frame of what she was sending.
“Transmission completed, Commander. You will find it essential to your mission.”
Valkris’s hot blood streamed down her slashed wrist and palm and between her fingers, soaking the inner folds of her robe, growing cold. She was beginning to feel the effects of loss of blood.
In the language of Kruge and Valkris, which possessed an almost limitless number of forms and variations, every utterance had many layers, many meanings. When Kruge spoke again, he switched to the most formal variation. Valkris understood it, as did all well-born members of their society, but she had never spoken it, or had it spoken to her, outside the classroom. She felt honored, and she knew for certain that Kruge would keep the vows he had made to her.
“Then you have seen the transmission,” Kruge said, implying regret and inevitability.
“I have, my lord,” Valkris replied, granting permission in the second stratum and offering forgiveness as the third.
“That is unfortunate,” Kruge said, accepting what she gave him and affirming that it was neither frivolously given nor lightly accepted.
“I understand,” Valkris said. She made all three strata the same, for she wanted him to know that she understood what she was doing and why, that she understood what he was doing and why, and that she understood that he would make certain the promises made to her would be kept.
“Thrusters,” Kruge said, in the form of their language used by commanders to subordinates.
In the viewport, the Klingon fighter changed. The wings of its aft armament section swung from neutral into attack. The vessel rotated, arcing around until its bulbous command chamber thrust toward the merchant ship.
The merchant captain turned on Valkris in a fury.
“What’s going on? When do we get paid off?”
“Soon, Captain,” Valkris said. “Quite soon.” She spoke again, in formal tongue, to Kruge. “Success, Commander. And my love.” She did love him, indeed, as the instrument of her bloodline’s redemption.
She felt curiously lightheaded and happy. Happiness had deserted her for far too long. She was glad to experience it this one last time.
“You will be remembered with honor,” Kruge said. Then he switched dialects again. Valkris knew he was speaking so she would be sure to hear his command: “Fire!”
The Klingon fighter swept toward them like a hunting falcon. Valkris did not see the beams of energy, for their destructive force reached the merchant ship at the same instant as the coherent light that formed them. The ship quaked. People shouted, then screamed. Valkris smelled the acrid smoke of burning insulation and flash-burned computer circuits. She heard the terrible hiss of escaping air.
I have shown my face to the world long enough, she thought. It is time to return to the customs of my family.
Her left hand was dark with blood. It marred the whiteness of the veil as she covered her face for the last time.
“For gods’ sake!” the merchant captain cried. “Make him help us! We’ll keep your damn secrets, just don’t let him space us!”
Valkris closed her eyes.
The bulkhead imploded upon her.
The merchant ship exploded into slag. A shock wave of pure energy battered its scout ship, which Farrendahl had gentled out into space and concealed against the side of the larger craft. At the instant of the explosion, Farrendahl hit the acceleration hard, cut it just as abruptly, and fired all the steering rockets at once. The maneuver blasted the scout out of its hiding place along the merchant’s flank and put so much roll, pitch, and yaw on the scout that it would look like merely another bit of exploded debris.
Tran shouted an inarticulate curse.
The scout was far too small to carry gravity, so the spin had its full effects on the occupants. Farrendahl struggled to keep her bearings and her consciousness. When she could stand the erratic tumbling no more, she gradually engaged the steering rockets and brought the scout to a steadier course. She dared not do it quickly lest the attacker notice that this bit of the ship moved under its own power.
“So ‘we may have to just turn around and go back inside,’ huh?” Tran said, still stunned and dizzy. That had been the only explanation Farrendahl would give him, till now, and now the explanation was obvious.
She used the aft scanners. Through the expanding, thinning cloud of debris, Farrendahl saw the Klingon ship send one last blast of energy against the destroyed merchant, then turn away from its kill and head toward Federation territory.
“Where did it come from?” Tran said.
“Out of the ether,” Farrendahl said.
The scout ship carried too little fuel to reach the nearest inhabited star system. She plotted a low-fuel course toward the nearest shipping lane, where they stood an excellent chance of being picked up. It would take them a while to get there. Just as well: before they were rescued, they would need to fabricate a believable and innocuous explanation for their plight.
Commander Kruge watched the ramshackle merchant ship go violently and silently to pieces under his fire. He stroked the spiny crest of his mascot, Warrigul, who sat by his side whining and hissing with excitement.
The demise of an opponent offered more satisfaction if the death came slowly, but the merchant was too easy a catch to be treated as an opponent. Besides, Kruge deigned to give Valkris a clean finish.
He nodded to his gunner, who reacted to the unusual order without question or hesitation. He fired the beams and b
lew the merchant ship beyond atoms.
The few remaining bits of debris tumbled away. Kruge felt completely satisfied. His only regret was never meeting Valkris face to face. He had heard much of her, both before her bloodline came to grief and after. Her information would win for him a great triumph; her death would return her family to its previous place in their society’s hierarchy. Kruge doubted that the family had another member to choose who would be the match of the formidable Valkris. He wondered if he himself could match her. He was good, but she was renowned as a duelist. Now he would never have the chance to test himself against her.
Kruge rose and surveyed the work pit. His command chair stood at a level that put him well above the heads of the crew members. None looked at him. Each bent intently over the task at hand, fearing a charge of laziness and the resulting discipline. Kruge could find some breach of regulations under almost any circumstances, but having just asserted his dominance over the merchant ship, he felt no need to assert his complete authority over his crew.
He removed the data plaque from the recorder and slipped it under his belt.
Warrigul rubbed its head against Kruge’s knee. Its spines scraped against the heavy fabric of the commander’s trousers. Kruge reached down and scratched behind his pet’s ears. Warrigul leaned harder against him. It was the only creature on board about whose loyalty the commander had no doubt whatsoever. Everyone else might be a spy, a challenger, a traitor.
Kruge glanced at his assistant. As usual, Maltz reacted badly to ambush. The officer was deplorably sensitive to violence. Kruge kept him on because he was an excellent administrator and follower-of-orders, because Maltz seldom thought for himself, and because while he might betray Kruge—anyone might become a betrayer—he would never challenge his commander. It was inconceivable that any of their superiors would consider Maltz a suitable replacement for Kruge. Maltz not only supported Kruge’s position, he insured it. Therefore Kruge pretended never to notice behavior that some less devious commander might not have tolerated.
“I’ll be in my quarters,” Kruge said. “Execute a course to the Federation boundary.”
“Yes, my lord!” Maltz said, and hurried to do his bidding.
Kruge started away. Warrigul trotted after him, growling. One of the crew members in the work pit flinched. He glanced away from his work long enough to be certain Warrigul was not growling at him, then looked quickly down at his console again. Kruge stopped. His boots were on a level just above that of the crew member’s head. The crew member reluctantly raised his head when he realized Kruge was not going to move.
Kruge gestured casually at Warrigul.
“You may have the honor of feeding my pet,” he said.
Struggling to keep the fear from his expression, the underling nodded vigorously. Kruge was so amused that he decided not even to discipline him for failing to answer properly.
The commander strode toward his quarters, where he kept a secure data-viewer. He was exceedingly anxious to watch what Valkris had obtained for him.
Five
Federation science ship Grissom sailed out of the darkness and into sunrise, crossing the terminator of the brand-new world. David was excited and pleased by what he had seen so far. For a first try, Genesis was a smashing success. Saavik, as usual in public, showed no emotion. He wished they could go off somewhere and talk so he could find out what she really thought.
“New orbit commencing,” she said. “Coming up on sector three.”
She was upset by their discovering Captain Spock’s coffin down on the surface, David knew it, but she hid the fact well. David decided to try to persuade Captain Esteban to send some people down to bury the tube.
“Short-range scan,” he said.
Saavik studied the sensors. “As before, metallic mass. Verifying triminium photon tube. No new data.”
“Check for trace radiation. Infrared enhancement.” David had observed Captain Esteban’s tendency toward overcautiousness. He would surely want to have proof that the tube was safe before he permitted anyone to approach it.
“Residual radiation only,” Saavik said. “The level is minimal.”
The sensor output changed abruptly. David started violently and hurried to Saavik’s side. Studying the monitor intensely, she adjusted the controls. But the new sound meant more than simple interference. Instead of fading, it sharpened and strengthened.
“I don’t believe it,” David said.
Captain Esteban, who had been hovering around them for the whole two hours of the first orbit, leaned over his shoulder to see the screen.
“What is it?”
“If our equipment is functioning properly,” Saavik said, “the indications are…an animal life form.”
Esteban folded his arms. “You said there wouldn’t be any,” he said to David.
“There shouldn’t be any. We only enabled the plant forms in the Genesis matrix.”
Captain Esteban seemed unwilling to accept what David had tried to tell him several times: that Genesis was an experiment. Besides being a prototype, the torpedo had detonated in an environment completely different from the one it had been designed to affect. And who knew what Khan Noonien Singh might have done while he possessed the device? However obsessed he was, he had to have been a brilliant man. He could surely have discovered how to turn on the programs the team had disabled for the first use of Genesis.
That must be what happened, David thought, if this reading isn’t just a sensor gremlin. If Khan was going to use Genesis to create a world for his people to live on, he would have wanted the complete ecosphere, animals included. He would have known he couldn’t import any species from Earth—that’s for damned sure!
But David had to wonder why it had taken a full orbit to find the first animal life form.
He pushed away his worries. Animal life was decidedly not a symptom of the things David had most feared might go wrong.
Good grief, now you’re sounding like Esteban, David said to himself. You’re demanding a complete analysis to ten decimal places before you have enough information for a first approximation. Go ahead and form a hypothesis if you want, but don’t turn it into a natural law before you’ve collected any data.
Then he thought, Holy Heisenberg, what if Vance’s dragons really are down there? That would please Mother.
Saavik had been working while David daydreamed and Esteban hovered.
“Cross-referenced and verified,” she said. “An unidentified animate life form.”
Saavik had been trying to analyze her own reaction to the discovery of Spock’s coffin. At the time of Spock’s funeral, sending his body to intersect the Genesis wave, to disintegrate into its sub-elementary particles and be incorporated into the very fabric of the new world, had seemed to Saavik an elegant solution, one Spock would have approved. Disobeying Admiral Kirk’s orders so flagrantly had troubled her slightly, but her loyalty to Spock was of a higher order entirely. In truth, she believed she was the only person who could understand him and appreciate his life.
Now, having disobeyed Admiral Kirk’s instructions, having chosen an orbit of her own design, she must take the responsibility for what had happened. But—what had happened? She was dealing with forces that no one yet completely understood. Again and again David had stressed the potential for unexpected events. Perhaps the potential reached as far as inexplicable occurrences…
For something—or someone—was down there on that planet.
Saavik glanced at David and saw that he was as perplexed as she, yet both delighted and excited. She wished they could go off in private and discuss what they had found.
Esteban rubbed his jaw.
“Do you wish to advise Starfleet, sir?” the communications officer said.
“Wait a minute,” Esteban said. “We don’t know what we’re talking about here.”
“Why don’t we beam it up?” David said, just to watch Esteban react.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Esteban said sharply. “Reg
ulations specifically state, ‘Nothing shall be beamed aboard until danger of contamination has been eliminated.’ Can you guarantee that?”
David reflected that it was no fun to pull someone’s leg if he never eventually realized his leg was being pulled.
“Not from here, no,” the young scientist said.
“Captain,” Saavik said, “the logical alternative is obvious. Beaming down to the surface is permitted—”
“ ‘If the captain determines that the mission is vital and reasonably free of danger.’ I know the book, Lieutenant Saavik.”
“Captain, please,” David said. He was getting sick and tired of having Starfleet regulations quoted at him in regard to his own project. “We’ll take the risk. We’ve got to find out what’s down there!”
“Or who,” Saavik said, very softly.
David glanced at her, startled.
Esteban nodded thoughtfully to David. “All right,” he said. “Get your gear. I’ll put you down next time around.”
“Thank you, sir,” David said.
Starfleet Cadet R. Grenni awoke in the trainees’ dorm. He felt groggy, and his head ached. He had slept too much. He had nothing else to do. Whenever he slept, he had nightmares—but even the nightmares were better than the things he remembered.
He wished he were back on the Enterprise. At least there he would have work to do. He had volunteered to stay, but he had been transferred to Firenze along with most of his other classmates. Only a few essential cadets had been left on board the Enterprise. Obviously, Commander Scott had not considered Grenni essential.
When Firenze reached Earth, Starfleet gave all the trainees several weeks’ leave. If they had deliberately planned to torture Grenni, they could not have chosen a better way.
His message light was glowing. He stumbled to the reception panel. Hands trembling, heart beating violently, he accepted the communication. They had caught up to him, they had realized their mistake. This must be his summons to a court-martial—
Duty, Honor, Redemption Page 30
