Dwellers in the Crucible

by Margaret Wander Bonanno

  "If it backfires, of course, the Admiralty never heard of us. A variation on the Double Blind Game with us as dupes—clever, but obvious. Yet I sit here trying to read Lord Tolz's mind from a distance of a billion kellicams—which way, I wonder, does he expect us to jump, and does it profit us more to meet his expectations or to jump the other way? I am convinced this is in fact Triple Blind, the object of which is to slowly drive me mad!"

  Something clicked in Kalor's brain just then, but he waited for Krazz to say his fill.

  "And not so much as a chance to entertain ourselves with the females!" Krazz was ranting, pounding the walls in his rage as he paced; he was literally foaming at the mouth. He rounded on Kalor as if this morning's incident had been his fault. "What happened with the hairless one is not to be repeated. There will be no hands-on with any of the prisoners, not even the males. Gods know what tricks they have up their sleeves—or under their trousers. No further contact, is that clear?"

  "Quite clear, my Lord," Kalor said, watching Krazz wipe the saliva off his chin. When he thought his commander might be calm enough, he played his move. "But there may be other ways to amuse ourselves."

  Krazz's eyes narrowed.

  "What did you have in mind, Lieutenant?"

  "Perhaps a variation on the Game that even Lord Tolz has not anticipated," Kalor said, weighing his words. "But your opinion first, my Lord. Your opinion as a soldier, widely experienced in such matters."

  Krazz was not immune to flattery, if it was well executed. He grinned.

  "Speak!"

  "How do you think the Federation will respond to the Rihannsu ransom demands?"

  "'Respond?'" Krazz snorted. "How do they usually respond? They will make highblown speeches about refusing to negotiate with terrorists, and we will have to kill the prisoners to make an example of them. There is of course an outside chance that they will attempt a rescue—a suicide mission, naturally. Humanoids seem almost as keen on those as the Roms. Oh, how I would relish that!"

  "Then, in your expert opinion, my Lord, the prisoners are already as good as dead?"

  Krazz shrugged.

  "My orders are to keep them alive indefinitely. Until I figure out Tolz's plan I will do so. However, I have no desire to spend the rest of my life on this rock. If, after a judicious amount of time our sheep were to meet with an accident, or pine away as these inferior species tend to do. . . ."

  The liquor was wearing off, and Krazz realized he was saying too much. His eyes grew crafty again. Kalor seized his opportunity.

  "If our 'sheep' were to meet with such an unfortunate fate, my Lord, would the fault fall on us or on the Rihannsu?"

  Krazz's face lighted up with glee.

  "The Feds don't even know we're involved. And a dead witness is no witness!"

  Kalor nodded, satisfied, and bided his time.

  Hikaru Sulu took the cup of steaming matcha from Admiral Nogura, bowed slightly, and offered it to Jim Kirk. Kirk accepted the delicate porcelain object, trying not to wince as the hot tea burned his fingers through its eggshell thinness, and bowed in return, shifting his weight uncomfortably on the tatami. He sometimes thought Nogura insisted on the tea ceremony whenever he was in town just to make his Occidental posterior squirm.

  "Not you, Jim," Nogura said, and Kirk knew better than to argue this time. "Not Spock and not McCoy. The Romulans have a sheet on each of you as long as your respective arms. However, I can use that. As I can use Hikaru here and some other key personnel. And perhaps the Enterprise, but not as you might think."

  "Heihachiro, I can usually follow your machinations, but—"

  "Your sealed orders are being fed direct into ship's computer even as we speak. Just deploy your people as per instructions and leave the rest to those who have the whole picture."

  Kirk sipped his tea deliberately before he trusted himself to speak.

  "And what are the rest of us supposed to do in the meantime?"

  "Why, just what you came back to Earth to do," the Ice Man said expansively, watching Kirk squirm. "Pick up a new consignment of cadets and take them out on maneuvers."

  Five

  "PURE GENIUS!" SULU was explaining to Saavik, surveying his new self in the full-length mirror in Sickbay one more time.

  Whether he was talking about the mission Nogura and Special Section were about to send him on, or McCoy's surgical prowess, or his own reincarnation as a Rihannsu functionary, Saavik couldn't tell. She'd been assigned to help him polish his accent before he made the crossover into the Empire; for the moment she was his captive audience.

  "Look at it as a tactical exercise, Saavik. Brilliant! You take a ship that's notorious in both Empires, load it to the rafters with cadets, send it on maneuvers just outside the Rom Neutral Zone, all innocence. The Roms immediately assume it's a cover for a spy mission, so they monitor it real close. At the same time, though, they're figuring we wouldn't be so obvious, so they suspect it's a decoy, and they deploy all available manpower looking for the real spy ship. You with me so far?"

  Saavik just nodded curtly. Of course she was "with him;" she'd worked out far more complex permutations than this as exercises for Tactics I when she was a plebe. If she were a Rihannsu commander …

  The thought was an uncomfortable one and she dismissed it, concentrating instead on the personage Sulu now presented after a morning under McCoy's knife. He had the facial structure and basic coloring of a Rihannsu colonial to begin with, and with his newly pointed ears and upswept eyebrows he could conceivably pass. As long as he didn't do anything foolish like cut his finger on a paring knife and start bleeding red. However, his demeanor—

  "So, okay," he went on, warming to his topic, admiring himself in his Record Clerk's uniform from every possible angle. "Meanwhile, you do a chatter blitz on the subspace channels, the gossip wavelength. The Roms have broken Codes 3 and 4 by now, but we're not supposed to know that, and they seem to get a charge out of listening in on the who's sleeping with whom stuff. So we gradually feed them some juicy bits. Like the 'fact' that yours truly is purported to have gone civilian, last seen as a consultant for an aerodynamics firm on Colony 5; I've already set up a series of time-delayed commpics to an uncle in Hokkaido to make it look authentic. Like the 'fact' that Montgomery Scott has been remanded to medical rest leave after a three-day binge and busting up a pub on Argelius; I just hope Scotty doesn't hurt anybody when they stage that brawl. Those two 'facts' will leave Scotty and me to do our thing. Then you throw in the 'fact' that Kirk and Enterprise have fallen under some sort of political cloud and been relegated to the boonies indefinitely. You follow?"

  "But, sir—those are outright falsehoods—" Saavik objected, struggling with the true word, not wanting to give offense, "—lies!"

  Sulu grinned at her reflection in the mirror.

  "You're learning, kid. You're learning!"

  Kids, Sulu thought, watching the disillusionment on that face, a face that, gods, was enough to make him wish he was Rihannsu. In a way you hated to steal their innocence, but if you didn't break them in gradually, as a friend, before someone came along and snatched it from them …

  "Okay," he continued—reflective moods never lasted long with him. "While the Roms are running the gossip through their linguanalyzers and falling all over themselves shadowing Enterprise along the border, Special Section slips me over the border and we're in business." He grinned at himself in the mirror, adjusting his collar and admiring his ears. "By the way, how do I look?"

  You look, Saavik wanted to say, like a human surgically altered to pass for a Rihannsu colonial employed in Records Section, and if you don't stop strutting about drawing attention to yourself and adopt the proper self-effacing manner suitable to your rank and station all of Dr. McCoy's handiwork will go for nothing because you'll be stopped at the border and gutted like a sea-hare.

  She stopped herself, remembering something Spock had said to her when he first undertook her instruction.

  "Beware of letting facts
obscure your perspective," he had said.

  She had thought he was being ironic, if not paradoxical. She had not understood him then and didn't now. Or did she?

  She looked at Sulu again, forgetting everything she knew about him, removing from his present appearance all preconceptions, the patina of familiarity, her certain knowledge of him as human and Starfleet officer. (He was the first full human who had ever touched her, guiding her hands the first time she took the helm without the autopilot, steadying her, all businesslike and cool; but the sensation, his unguarded human thoughts made accessible to her through physical contact, had been most peculiar.)

  She must forget this complex, sometimes disturbing individual, and concentrate not on what he had been, but on what he had become.

  ("Tolerance," Spock had also said, over and over until she had wanted to scream at him for all her Vulcan discipline. "You who were born between worlds, who will coexist with those of all worlds, must above all master tolerance. Tolerance is logical.")

  She saw that Sulu had turned away from the mirror at last, was looking at her expectantly, awaiting her approval.

  "You look—adequate," she answered bluntly, watching his face fall. "What name have you chosen?" she asked quickly, to assuage his tender human feelings.

  "Lel," Sulu answered. "Lel em'n Tri'ilril." His accent was flawless, Saavik noted. "We've researched. The Tri'ilril matronymic belongs to several clans, so it's obscure enough to be difficult to trace. It could buy me some time in a pinch, le?"

  "Ie," Saavik agreed. "Yll hrarizhmeliil ssri'ith?"

  "Shsaa'ed vresish thlaymv," Sulu assured her, growing serious, assuming a character with the transition in language, the character of a humble Records Clerk, subaltern, blender-into-the-middle-distance, the perfect role for his task. He bared his left shoulder to show her the "dueling scar," one of McCoy's extra touches.

  Saavik nodded her satisfaction, both with the authentic look of the scar and the flawlessness of Sulu's accent. The sudden change in character should not have surprised her; she had forgotten how transmutable these humans could be. "Natural actors," Spock would have said.

  "Yr mewsatheth kri'iw," she said, and Sulu's grin was eradicated forever, as if it had never existed, as he answered: "Sedith mer'vri."

  Together they moved down the deserted corridors of Enterprise. The new consignment of cadets would not begin to arrive until after Sulu had beamed down to a Special Section secured holding area. Once altered, he must be seen by as few as possible. They spoke exclusively in Low Rihan, the everyday language of the Romulan and probably the only language a colonial would be permitted to speak in public. It was the language Sulu would think, breathe, eat and sleep in until he slipped across the Zone to give his newly pointed ears a workout.

  The Warrantors' days devolved down into a kind of routine.

  After the incident with Jali, the Klingons kept an almost comically careful distance between themselves and their prisoners. At least Krn found it amusing, snorting and giggling behind his fingers until a look from Resh silenced him. The two guards, ever-present in alternating shifts, their hard faces peering through the transparency—as if despite it and their weapons and the electrified fence some escape were possible (and escape to where, with neither food nor shelter on an uninhabited planetoid?)—did not speak to the captives at all. As for Krazz, whatever he had to say was issued in the form of an order from where he stood in the doorway with legs astride and thumbs hooked into his belt.

  "You will surrender your soft, decadent pre-synthesized clothing," he announced as the guards tossed each captive a coarse gray uniform several sizes too large for any of them. "It will be destroyed. Also your footwear. We are the only living things on this miserable rock, so there is no place our sensors cannot find you. But the thought of the sharp native stones under your soft civilian feet should discourage any contemplation of escape."

  It was T'Shael who dared to speak to him about the food and the lack of sanitation.

  "Your rations consist of animal flesh," she said, holding the bundled uniform against her thin chest, retaining her dignity. The Rihannsu had left them packets of dried field rations, mostly a variety of highly spiced dried meat and coarse biscuit. The others had complained but managed to choke down the execrable stuff; T'Shael had subsisted on water since her capture. "As a Vulcan, I cannot eat this."

  "Well, the ugly one has a tongue!" Krazz exulted. "And it doesn't care for the Rom's fine soldiers' rations. Suppose I say I don't care if you starve?"

  "That is of course your privilege," T'Shael acknowledged. "But since your mission specifies that you are to preserve the lives of your captives—"

  She deliberately spoke the word in Klingonaase, and Krazz gave her an evil look.

  "There is a danger in knowing too much," he cautioned her. He was accustomed to craven submission, and found her impassiveness unnerving. He countered it with sarcasm. "And what would milady's refined palate prefer?"

  "I will eat neither animal flesh nor the products of living creatures," T'Shael said evenly. "Since you have no synthesizers—"

  "This is not a health resort!" Krazz roared, incredulous. "Next you will demand servitors to cut your meat for you—except that you won't eat meat, is that it? I will see what sort of silage I can find for you, my Federation sheep, between now and the next supply ship, but I make no promises. Small wonder your blood is green!"

  He translated this for the guards' benefit and together they enjoyed the joke.

  Supply ships, T'Shael noted, exchanging glances with the others. Such information might prove useful. The Vulcan dared one thing more.

  "There is the matter of hygiene—" she began.

  "More complaints!" the Klingon commander despaired, making a few salacious comments for the guards' entertainment. They laughed until the tears came. Kahless, but their lord was clever! When Krazz decided the merriment had lasted long enough he grew surly. "I didn't have a hot bath until I was an adult. If cold water was good enough for me, it is good enough for you."

  "We will require soap and towels," T'Shael said, equally indifferent to mirth or anger. "And the wherewithal to keep our place of confinement clean. And a change of bedding. If dirt is the natural order for the Klingon, it is not for us."

  Krazz found this so amusing he did not bother translating it for the guards.

  "I like you, Vulcan," he said at last, wheezing a little. "Even if you're ugly. You amuse me. So, you're industrious, are you? You're concerned with the cleanliness of your cage? Excellent. I will put in a requisition for the items you desire, and in addition to scrubbing this room from top to bottom you will act as my servitor as well."

  "If you wish it," T'Shael replied. "The exchange is equitable."

  Krazz and the guards were not quite out the door when the Deltans turned on T'Shael.

  "Oh, delight!" Jali clucked, clapping her hands in frustration. "Mops and brooms instead of decent clothing! Soap instead of better food. Sheets and towels instead of the freedom of the air. Strange, your priorities, strange!"

  "A softer tone, cousin," Resh admonished. "Though you could have consulted us first," he told T'Shael.

  "One must begin somewhere," she replied levelly. "If you had requests I am certain our captors would have found them as entertaining."

  "Well, I for one do no housekeeping for Klingons!" Jali declared heatedly.

  "None have asked you to," was T'Shael's reply.

  Cleante said nothing to anyone. She sat on her bunk alternately fingering the fastenings on the ugly convicts' uniform and stroking the fabric of her soft pastel blouse. It was rumpled and soiled from so many days' wear, ripped from Krazz's attack, but it was her favorite and she did not wish to part with it. She seemed indifferent to the controversy raging around her.

  Then little Krn spoke.

  "It will help you in your cleaning, Friend T'Shael," he piped up in his native tongue, drawing as close as he dared to a Vulcan except for his moment of panic on the Rihannsu ship
; he was a little in awe of the pointed-eared ones. "I am not fearing hard work," he said with a meaningful glance at his cousin Jali. "And it will help to pass the time."

  T'Shael looked at him solemnly.

  "My gratitude, Krnsandor L'am," she said, also in Deltan and with a formal bow. "You are an honor to your forebears and to all your loved ones."

  This formality tickled the child greatly, and he swung to his upper bunk with simian alacrity, stripping off his Deltan clothing and donning the Klingon uniform, giggling to himself.

  There had been a disc ussion of privacy from the very first.

  "This custom of hiding the body from the eyes of others is unknown to us," Resh said as spokesman for his cousins. "Nevertheless, we understand its place in your cultures."

  Cleante shook her head, rousing herself at last. Jali's cure had taken her mind off the encounter with Krazz. She had felt no fear when he marched into their cell moments before. However, the constant eyes of the guard beyond the transparency were unsettling.

  "I don't care anymore, Resh'da," she said. "We're all in this together. I just wish they didn't stare so."

  Resh helped her take the blanket off the bunk that had been meant for Theras and together they hung it between the bunks as a sort of privacy screen. Cleante's eyes shone with gratitude, and she slipped behind the blanket to change.

  Resh contemplated T'Shael. He shared Jali's belief in the hidden fire of the introverted, but would never offer uninvited.

  "The Vulcan holds that a well-conditioned body gives no offense," T'Shael said, perhaps reading his thoughts. "It is a body, nothing more. But I will not be approached."