Rise of the Federation

by Christopher L. Bennett

  Farid Najafi touched Sato’s arm. “You told Captain T’Pol about the chemical signals we detected, right?”

  Sato moved that arm to take a sip of water. “I did, but I think it’s inconclusive. With fewer than two dozen distinct pheromones, I’m not sure there’s enough complexity for language. And computer analysis of their subsonics shows there’s no way they could carry enough information to qualify as language.”

  “The Roman alphabet has only twenty-six letters, but it can make plenty of words. The dryads’ chemical signals have the potential for even more complexity, since they can combine simultaneously as well as sequentially. We’ve already found hundreds of repeating patterns.”

  “Come on, Farid,” Castellano objected. “You can’t even be sure which pheromones come from which individual. You’re making a rookie mistake, inventing spurious patterns out of randomness because it’s what you hope to see.”

  “You just admitted you have a personal stake in getting the result you want to see!”

  “No,” the biologist countered. “I don’t. I have a stake in profiting from the medicines and materials we can harvest from the dryads. I consider the question of their intelligence independent and irrelevant to that.”

  “You’re saying you don’t care if we’re killing intelligent life?”

  “I’m saying it’s not a likely enough possibility to worry about. The dryads are just too big. Too much of their brain mass must be devoted to sensation and motor control—there can’t be enough left over for reasoning.”

  “Their size is deceptive,” Najafi replied. “Only the tentacles and leg-roots can move. And the trunk’s mostly hollow, due to the resonating cavity and the water reservoir.”

  “They have dozens of tentacles and roots. The computations to maintain their balance alone would take up a lot of brain space.”

  “But we’ve seen social behavior. Their cooperation at the river, some of them guarding the others from predators.” He turned to Sato again. T’Pol raised an eyebrow, noting that he seemed to pay far more attention to Hoshi than to the other Endeavour officers. “We saw one of the guards attacked by a carnivorous—sorry, predatory plant. It was a kind of large mat that folded upward when stepped on and wrapped itself around the dryad. Several others came to its rescue and pulled the mat off, and not a moment too soon, because there seemed to be acid burns on the dryad. And it seemed like they’d done it before, because they did it very methodically and smoothly.”

  “Which could be an evolved instinct,” Castellano said, “not learned behavior. Red dwarfs are very long-lived. If this planet’s been here long enough for evolution to produce mobile plants, it’s long enough to produce complicated instincts as well.”

  “Or to produce intelligence?”

  “That, you have to prove.”

  Zang turned to T’Pol. “Captain, you can philosophize all you want about respecting other beings’ primacy and erring on the side of caution, but as I see it, we’re weighing the very real medical benefits that dryad products could provide for millions of people who are certainly sentient against the remote and highly improbable suspicion that a species of mobile plant might be sentient. Is there a remote chance that the dryads have minds? Maybe. Sure. But whenever I take my ship to warp, there’s a remote chance my crew could be struck by an asteroid or sucked into a wormhole. There’s always a risk my decisions could kill someone—but if it’s a remote enough risk, nobody would call it unreasonable for me to take it. I have a responsibility to my crew to take action rather than living in fear of the improbable.

  “Every day you and Farid delay our harvesting of the dryads because of your ethical concerns, Captain T’Pol, you prevent me from taking action for the good of my crew, and for the good of many others besides. My people are eager to get to work, and so am I. I’ve been patient with Farid so far. I’ve let him call you in to speed up the process. But if you and he don’t find some kind of result soon, I’m within my rights to ask you to leave and proceed with my harvest. Given your fondness for noninterference, I trust,” Zang finished with a pointed look, “that you will respect that.”

  “That is your right,” she conceded. She then rose from the table. “I trust you will excuse me, Captain Zang.” T’Pol left without looking back at the unfinished meal on her plate.

  March 1, 2166

  Akleyro, Sauria

  “Nearly all the pieces are in place,” Charles Tucker said. “I’ve provided the Malurians with Harris’s physical specs and a recording of his voice. They’ve already fabricated the mask, and their man Tanag is working on his impersonation. It won’t be perfect on short notice, but since Harris has been so careful to stay out of any public record for years, it should be close enough. That’s also why we don’t have to worry about him having an alibi. The only people who could corroborate his whereabouts for the past few weeks are also part of the organization, and they can’t defend him without exposing themselves, which is just what we want.

  “So what we’ll do is to stage a scene of Harris and D’Nesh discussing their plan over subspace. Garos has recordings of his own prior conversations with D’Nesh, and his people are altering them to create the simulation. It’ll look like subspace interference is lowering the image clarity and causing the occasional glitch, to hide any imperfections. Elevia will be part of that little confab in disguise, after which she and the fake Harris will meet with the Untainted, to make it look like they’re conspiring to arrange the catastrophe during the factory attack. They’re the ones Garos plans to pin it on, since they’re the most extreme sect. Now, to really sell it, Elevia will be wearing a bracelet she managed to swipe from D’Nesh. The plan is that Navaar will recognize that bracelet, and it’ll help convince her that Elevia is D’Nesh’s operative. And that’s where you come in.”

  Antonio Ruiz studied Tucker skeptically, crossing his arms. “Because you need me to catch it on my imager and beam it out to the galaxy.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why can’t you do it yourself?”

  “Because it’ll be more convincing if it comes from a known advocate of the resistance. And I need to keep myself out of it. I explained why.” That was an incomplete truth, just as the explanation itself had been. There was much that Trip wanted to tell his friend but still could not—and much more that he would be ashamed to admit even if he could. But it was a relief even to come clean to Antonio as far as he had.

  Ruiz shook his head. “Don’t you get it, man? All these lies and tricks—how are they supposed to make anything better? Why not just come out and tell the truth about who you are, what you know?”

  “I would have, years ago, if I could. But I . . . I have too many bad decisions on my hands. Decisions that Harris and his people could easily pin on me so they could avoid exposure.”

  “You mean they’re blackmailing you into silence.”

  Tucker winced inwardly, ashamed at how close that was to the mark. “Call it what you like. But it’s effective. It’s how they keep their own hands clean—by maneuvering their operatives into doing the dirty work for them. And Harris is too careful to ever let himself be implicated. That’s why we have to create the smoking gun.”

  “And you really think you can lie better than the master liars? That they won’t be ready for this?”

  “I’m not in this alone, Tony. My allies and I have come as close as we can to building a case against Section Thirty-one, but we have to tie Harris to it somehow. And this is the best plan we’ve managed to come up with.”

  “And that alone should tell you how screwed you are.”

  “You think I don’t know that? This is a Hail Mary. But it’s a gamble I’m willing to take. I can’t stand idly by any longer.” He clasped his old friend’s shoulder. “You helped show me that. And that’s why I need your help now.”

  “It’s too risky,” Ruiz protested, shrugging off the gesture. “If you know there’s a major disaster being planned, you can’t hide that. You can’t gamble all tho
se lives for the sake of your spy games. We should take this to Mullen and Kelly right now.”

  “And convince them how? You think they’d believe this story coming from me, a man who’s faked being dead for eleven years? I’ve got no way to prove it. They sure wouldn’t believe an Orion spy. And Garos wouldn’t confess his involvement, not unless it’s after he’s had a chance to get away. Besides, if we scuttle their plan here, the Sisters might just try again later. The only way to stop it is to expose their goals publicly so they no longer have a reason to try it.”

  Ruiz began to pace. “If these Section hombres are responsible for half the things you said, then yeah, I want to see them get what’s coming to them. And I’m up for anything I can do to save Saurian lives. But this plan—it’s so crazy. How’s it gonna hurt this D’Nesh lady if her sister catches her conspiring to do the same thing they were already conspiring to do?”

  “Because it’ll look like she’s conspiring with someone in the Federation, behind Navaar’s back. Maybe Navaar will think she was making a side deal, like she did before with the Babel Conference. More importantly, if the footage of their collusion gets exposed and the sabotage is foiled, then it’ll look like D’Nesh’s incompetence bungled the operation. Even if Navaar believes her denials, she may still have to write D’Nesh off as a liability.”

  Tucker’s rationales sounded feeble even to his own ears. Bringing Devna and Garos in had been necessary, and he still felt the former could be a real asset; but balancing all the conflicting agendas was making this plan much more convoluted than he would have liked.

  He sighed. “Look, honestly, that’s the least important part to me. That was just the condition for getting Elevia’s help. It’s more important for the Federation to see Harris conspiring with the Syndicate. He’s the one who needs to be discredited.”

  Ruiz looked him over. “You really hate this guy, don’t you?”

  Tucker held his friend’s gaze. “Honestly? No, I don’t. I hate what he’s done, and I really hate what he’s made me do. But in his own way, he’s trying to do good. He really believes he’s helping the Federation in a way nobody else can. He’s just too willing to rationalize letting other people get hurt in the process.”

  The resistance fighter scoffed. “That’s pretty much the definition of privilege. That bad things are only unthinkable if they happen to your own kind.” Ruiz thought it over. “I like the idea of bringing this guy down. But my broadcasts are about getting out the truth. Against Maltuvis’s propaganda, the truth is the most important weapon we have. You’re asking me to taint that. Maybe lying’s gotten so easy for you that you can’t appreciate how hard that is to agree to.”

  Tucker lowered his head. “I deserve that. And I hate asking you for it. But it’s the only way I know to bring out a deeper truth—that Section Thirty-one exists and is doing more harm than good. They need to be brought into the light, and they need to be stopped.”

  The younger man stepped closer. “And what will you do if you manage to get that truth out?”

  “I’ll get out of this life. Most likely, I’ll disappear again—fake my death so even they can’t find me. One more lie, but after that, I won’t have to hurt anyone ever again. If I have to, I’ll even come forward, tell the whole truth . . . and face the music for it.”

  It was some moments before Ruiz spoke again. “Okay,” he conceded. “If this is your only way out . . . then I’ll do it. Because I believe we should help out our friends when they need us.”

  Tucker blinked rapidly, suffused with gratitude. “You don’t owe me anything, Tony. I haven’t been that good a friend.”

  “It’s about how good I want to be to my friends. You made mistakes. I’m still pissed at you. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t still my friend, Al. And that means I’ll be there for you.”

  Tucker grinned and clasped his friend’s hands warmly. “Trip,” he said. “My friends call me Trip.”

  Ruiz laughed. “Trip. You certainly are that, man.”

  When Devna signaled Tucker to let him know that she and Garos were done with their preparations, he brought Ruiz to the chamber the Malurians had rigged for their dramatization. To his surprise, Devna wore no disguise beyond a hooded cloak. “I expected you’d be in a mask of your own,” he said.

  “It will suffice,” Devna said, her voice an even quieter whisper than usual. “Owners rarely look that closely at their slaves’ faces.”

  Garos turned to the younger human. “You, Mister Ruiz, will be stationed behind this vent,” he said, leading him over to a large grille at the rear of the chamber. “A city carved into a cliff needs plenty of air shafts, which are more than roomy enough to let an intrepid journalist eavesdrop on a secret conversation. The viewscreen that will display the D’Nesh simulation is positioned to give you an ideal vantage point.” The Raldul leader studied Ruiz. “I trust you aren’t claustrophobic.”

  That brought a laugh. “I was a mining engineer in my old life,” Ruiz said. “I’ve crawled through tighter spaces plenty of times.”

  “Excellent. My men will help you inside.” As he spoke, one of his Malurian subordinates removed the grille while another moved in to give Ruiz a leg up.

  “What about the fake Harris?” Tucker asked.

  “A good mask is an intricate creation,” Garos said, moving back toward him. “Our masksmiths prefer to keep touching them up until the last possible moment. But I guarantee you will be amazed at the result.”

  Grinning, Garos moved to the side door and opened it. “Tanag! Time to take the stage.”

  In the corner of his eye, Tucker saw Devna look away and lower her head. He wasn’t sure if it was that or Garos’s increasingly smug grin that first made him feel that something was wrong.

  When the Malurian impersonator Tanag entered the doorway, Tucker could see that he was suitably attired in the spare black uniform of Section 31. As he moved into the light, it became clear that the mask he wore was a perfect facsimile of the face of a Caucasian human male.

  But the face he wore was that of Charles Tucker III.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Tucker cried.

  “Calm down, Agent Tucker,” Garos intoned as more Raldul operatives moved into the room, covering him with Malurian phase pistols. “My revision to your plan will work best if you’re alive, but I have contingencies for the alternative.”

  “Hey, what’s going on?” Ruiz cried from the air shaft, but the operatives closed the grille and held it there to trap him.

  Tucker almost asked how Garos had learned his real name, but years of intelligence training stopped him. Besides, he got his answer when Devna turned to him. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He stared at her. “You betrayed me!”

  “Oh, please don’t hold it against her, Charles,” Garos said. “I’m afraid I found it necessary to blackmail the young lady into cooperation, lest I reveal her treason to Navaar. I regret that I couldn’t follow through with her plan to destroy D’Nesh . . . but stability within the Syndicate is better for Raldul’s goals.”

  Tucker’s angry gaze fell back upon Garos. “So you didn’t have the guts to break free of the Sisters’ control after all.”

  “Please, don’t be crass. You’d understand if you were Malurian. If your females were largely sessile, unable to move far from the places of their birth. It makes my mate a sitting target for the Sisters’ retaliation—and my mating bond makes it a biological imperative to protect and serve her. I never had the option of betraying Navaar. You were a fool to think I could.”

  “You always have such a righteous-sounding excuse for your crimes.”

  “Think what you will, but I cannot afford to let my own usefulness to Navaar be undermined any further. I have to help her ensure the success of her plan—a disaster large enough to shock the Federation into embracing noninterference, if not complete isolationism. Even better if the mishap can be blamed on the reckless, heavy-handed meddling of the same secretive Starfleet cabal that eng
ineered the Partnership’s destruction and chose not to stop Maltuvis’s rise to power in the first place.”

  “And if the agent whose bungling led to the catastrophe is a Starfleet legend who falsified his own death at the start of the Earth-Romulan War,” added Tanag in a flawless imitation of Tucker’s voice, “it makes Starfleet’s humiliation even greater.”

  “That’s why you need me alive. As a scapegoat.”

  “Exactly,” said Garos. “I’ve spoken to Maltuvis—he’s very eager to get his hands on you for a show trial to prove the evils of the Federation. Kind of you to let yourself be seen among the rebels, and to leave your genetic material behind. It’s convenient the way you mammals shed your hair and skin flakes everywhere you go, if somewhat disgusting.”

  “So why do you need to impersonate me at all?” Even as Tucker asked, the answer occurred to him. “No, wait—you need to take me out of the way before I can expose your plan, but you also need to make sure I’m still seen working with the resistance up until the factory raid.”

  “More than that,” Tanag said. “I—or rather, you—will be quite helpful in convincing the resistance to walk into our trap.”

  Tucker shook his head. “How can you live with yourself, Garos? I know you’re a killer, but you like to insist it bothers you. Now you’re talking about killing maybe millions of innocent civilians. Children. If you can go through with this, it renders all your claims of conscience meaningless.”

  “Even conscience has priorities, Agent Tucker,” the Malurian leader replied. “I’m not happy about the fate of all those Saurians—especially since they’re fellow reptilians. But I have to give more weight to the survival of Malurians. In a choice between the two, my first loyalty must be to my own kind.”