Dwellers in the Crucible

by Margaret Wander Bonanno

  She could ignore Krn, but that would not be Vulcan. Further, much of his monologue was studded with questions, which T'Shael as a teacher felt compelled to answer. She tried to apportion some of her mind for Krn and some for herself.

  "… in which case I shall be among the most educated of Deltans!" Krn chattered, half to himself, half to T'Shael. She had set him to washing windows; he loved to climb, and the yellow dust from the compound covered everything. "Think you, Friend T'Shael, with all the instructions you are giving me, if our time here lasts long I shall return home a scholar!"

  "Then all honor to you, Scholar L'am," T'Shael replied patiently. "But consider that the scholar knows the value of silence."

  Krn's hairless face puckered into a pout.

  "Am I talking too much?"

  "Would it offend you if I said so?"

  He tilted his head like a bird, thinking it over.

  "Yes," he replied.

  "Then I shall refrain from saying so." T'Shael fished the scrub brush out of the murky water and resumed her work.

  Krn leaped down from his perch on the windowsill and spun into a cartwheel, coming to rest crosslegged in front of the Vulcan, who regarded him mildly.

  "I wish you weren't a Vulcan," he said fervently. "Then I could give you a hug."

  T'Shael stopped her scrubbing. Again she dried her hands on her coveralls.

  "Would it please you to do so, Krnsandor L'am?"

  "It would warm my entire afternoon!" the youngster said sincerely.

  T'Shael considered. He was only a child, a child who might have to spend much of his life in this desolate place before this matter was resolved. If it would be of service—

  Were these a Vulcan's thoughts, or were they due to her contact with the human?

  "It would be my honor, Friend Krn," T'Shael said slowly.

  She found that his carefully pheromone-free embrace was not distasteful. The child finished his work and scrambled off to rejoin his cousins; he could not be without the touch of other of his kind for long.

  In his absence T'Shael was free to continue her linguistic study.

  "Espionage!" was what Kalor called it coming upon her suddenly and, he thought, soundlessly. The Vulcan had heard him coming and did not give him the satisfaction of reacting as he had hoped. "What do you think you're doing?"

  "Studying the language of my captors," T'Shael replied in fair Klingonaase; she had mastered that much of it already. "To understand one's enemy is to render him no longer an enemy."

  It was not precisely what she had wanted to say; "enemy" was far too strong a word for her, but her captors' conversations were not given to nuance. Her reply infuriated Kalor.

  "I don't want your 'understanding,' sheep!" he snarled, kicking the heavy bucket beside her, making the water slop over the sides.

  T'Shael did not so much as move aside as the filthy water splashed her. Something in the Klingon's voice puzzled her. She forced her retiring gaze up to meet his cold eyes, and almost caught the glint of fear in them.

  T'Shael's knowledge of Klingon ways was limited, yet were it broader she still could not have understood Kalor's predicament. Possibly she could comprehend the weight of shame he carried from his father's treason, but the reasons for it within the komerex tel khesterex, the orthodox expansionist philosophy of his kind, would have struck her as illogical, wasteful, if not incomprehensible. Yet, therein lay Kalor's fear.

  If his father had bequeathed him anything, it was that "sideways analytical squint" Krazz had cautioned him about. Mertak epetai Haaral had presumed within the confines of his own home and in the presence of friends to disavow the komerex, to suggest that conquest and subjugation need not be the only answers. A servitor overheard, and reported his treason.

  And Kalor, for all his circumspection, had been infected with his father's disease. He was obsessed with the study of the species his race conquered and enslaved or merely slaughtered. He participated in the slaughter to ensure his own survival within the system, and it could not be said that he did not savor it, yet there lingered in the charnel darkness of his soul the insight of Kor epetai Zareht, his father's comrade, who had been to Organia. Kor had told of the Organian prophecy that someday Klingon and human would join together toward a new tomorrow. In that tomorrow it would be he who had the most knowledge of other races and the least of their blood beneath his talons who would best survive.

  But this was today, and each dawn that Kalor's cold eyes beheld was proof that he had not yet been discovered for what he was: traitor's seed and traitor in his own right. No one must know his secret. The Vulcan and her curiosity threatened him by her very existence.

  Kalor tried to bully her, but she was unmoved. He might have kicked her as easily; T'Shael knew this and did not respond. This infuriated Kalor further.

  "We will see what becomes of you when Lord Krazz is informed of your spying!" he said, his triumph almost hiding his fear.

  But Krazz's response was less than gratifying.

  "So the ugly one spies on us? What harm can she do? Who can she tell?" Krazz chuckled evilly, watching his second carefully. "She's not unlike you, Kalor. She understands the value of analysis."

  Kalor took this as a warning and stayed clear of the Vulcan, though he was not through with her yet.

  Jim Kirk paced. It seemed all he ever did any more was pace. Uhura tried to ignore him, but he was literally inches from her chair and blowing a gale every time he passed. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. Three paces to the left, hard about, six to the right, hard about and back. Uhura sighed, put down her clipboard and turned toward him.

  "Admiral, sir," she said sweetly. "Is there something I can help you with?"

  Kirk was startled by a voice that was coming from somewhere other than inside his own head.

  "What? No, nothing, thanks. Just restless." Uhura waited for him to finish. "How long has it been?"

  "Since the Warrantors were kidnapped, since the Rihannsu issued their ransom demands, since they withdrew those demands, or since Scotty found out the Klingons are also involved?" she asked patiently. "Sixty-one days, fifty-eight days, forty-six days and twenty-seven days respectively".

  Kirk laughed mirthlessly.

  "You're beginning to sound like Spock. I meant how long have we been out here chasing ourselves?"

  "Forty-nine days, off and on," Uhura said. "Not counting the medical runs and the mapping expedition."

  "I'm almost beginning to believe the scuttlebutt you've been feeding the Romulans," he said. "Nobody loves us."

  Uhura offered him no sympathy. She would not bother to mention that for every one of those forty-nine days as well as during the side trips she had sat here, sometimes on double shift, transmitting false information for the Rihannsu to pick up, simultaneously reaching out to all her contacts Federation-wide in the hope of finding a thread, a crumb, a molecule of hard information they could use. There had been precious little.

  And at all times, onshift or off, she kept a special channel open for news of a Rihannsu Records Clerk named Lel. There had been none at all for some time.

  The early weeks of their mission-within-a-mission had been fruitful. Sulu had been in place only a few days when the coded reports started trickling back. He had leaked the news of Theras's death before the official sources could even confirm that any of the Warrantors were still alive. Before the uproar died down he had hailed in to say he was going further underground, checking supply ship runs to see if he could spot any unusual activity, any special consignments of food or medical supplies, anything that might indicate where in an entire Empire four humanoids and a Vulcan might be being held.

  The death of the Andorian had been rampant Court gossip; anyone who listened, even a servant or a humble Records Clerk, could have picked that up. But the trade routes, especially those that intersected with the Klingon Empire, were medium security classified and would take some deeper burrowing. That would take time. Sulu had logged his intention and si
gned off. They'd heard nothing further for over thirty days.

  It could mean he was simply doing his job, was so deeply engrossed in scanning thousands of consignment lists and lading runs that he had neither time nor opportunity to check in. It could simply mean he hadn't yet found anything worth writing home about.

  Or it could mean he'd been captured. Interrogated. Tortured. Executed. Uhura's hands had gone suddenly cold on the controls and she glared at the special channel indicator, willing it to light up. It didn't.

  Please, Hikaru, be all right! she prayed, shivering involuntarily. Please let us know where you are.

  Kirk noticed the shiver.

  "You all right, Freedom?" He always called her that when they were alone. "Want me to dial up the thermostat?"

  "It isn't that, Jim. I was thinking about Hikaru."

  "I know," Kirk said grimly. "I hated letting him go over. I hate sending any of us off alone, but he and Nogura had this one negotiated over my head before the tea cooled. And he's like a kid. He has to do these daredevil things."

  "As if you of all people couldn't understand that particular need!" Uhura said fondly. How many times had she had to stand by, waiting and wondering, while he went off on some breakneck expedition? Now he knew how it felt.

  Kirk smiled wistfully.

  "Reprimand noted," he said, looking past her at the stubbornly unlit indicator. "Wherever Sulu is right now, I hope he at least knows he's helped tip the balance in our favor. He may be instrumental in ending this thing that much sooner. We'll just have to trust his instincts to get him back."

  Montgomery Scott's instincts, as well as his modus operandi, had been somewhat different from Sulu's.

  "You never could hold your liquor, Earther," Admiral Korax slurred at him through the bottom of a Saurian brandy glass. "I owe you a broken jaw from the last time."

  "Ah, stow it and pour us another, ye bump-headed freak," Scotty slurred back affably. "I'll drink ye under slow or I'll clobber ye outright and get it over. Which d'ye prefer?"

  Korax snorted into his brandy, got it in his beard and dribbling down his chest.

  "Ye're a braggart and a blowhard, Muntgohmurrhee," the Klingon chortled; he could still imitate the burr as well as he had during the celebrated donnybrook on Station K-7 half a Klingon's lifetime ago. "An' I almost believe ye."

  Scotty's first reaction to the sight of his old fisticatory nemesis had been pure shock. Korax had gotten so old. He'd been only a youngster the last time they'd tangled—something to do with the Klingon's calling the Enterprise a garbage scow—but in the intervening years he had grown suddenly ancient. Scotty had forgotten the age differential that made a Klingon of thirty-five venerable. Korax must be close to thirty now, and in that respect he was older than Scotty. He was a scarred, wrinkled, iron-haired, and much-decorated admiral in the Klin Navy, nearing his retirement.

  Of course, Special Section had briefed Scotty on all of that before they set him up at the Intra-Empire Free Station to spout his disaffection with Starfleet where it could be overheard by Klingons, Rihannsu, or any other unsavory characters who might take an interest. Still, actually seeing what had become of Korax had given him a turn. Intimations of mortality, indeed.

  "'Muntgohmurrhee,'" Korax was mumbling, pouring more brandy on the table than in their glasses. "Kahless, why can't you have a decent name, y'old drunk? Something I can pronounce, at least."

  "Muh friends call me Scotty," the human said dourly.

  "'Skhottih.'" The Klingon tried it on his tongue. "Better. Still not civ'lized. But better." He shook the empty brandy bottle speculatively. "'Nother?"

  "I said muh friends call me Scotty," the human repeated sententiously. "Who's buyin' this time?"

  "I am. Just because you bought the first two, you tightfisted—"

  "All right, then. Ye can call me Scotty."

  Korax just growled and ordered another.

  "Doch," he said after a while. "I hear they threw you out. 'Medical rest leave.' A joke."

  "It's only temporarar—temperamentarry—temper—only for awhile," Scotty assured him solemnly. "Overwork."

  "Testicles!" Korax shouted, making the Sulamid waiter jump and get its tentacles tangled around the fresh bottle of brandy it had fetched. "Man like you—have his own command. Disgrace! Stuck in the vowels of Kirk's rust bucket all these years. No wonder angry. Would've busted up whole planet, never mind pub, I had to serve under that—"

  "Bowels," Scotty muttered into his mustache, trying not to laugh.

  "toH?" Like most elderly Klingons, Korax was more than a little deaf.

  "Nuthin'. Y're right, though. Passed over. Can't tell you how many times. Kirk gettin' the glory, me breakin' my—testicles—down below. Makes a man wonder what it's all for. If ye take my meaning."

  "Aye," Korax commiserated, pounding him on the back, hard.

  It was Scotty's turn to choke now, cough and splutter and add to the miasma of Saurian brandy saturating them both. They were really swilling in it by now. The other patrons had gotten bored with watching the novelty of a human and a Klingon getting drunk together and paid no attention.

  "Won't take you back, you know," Korax said with sudden confidentiality. "Starfleet. Finished. Kirk's got powerful friends. Know that for a fact."

  "Do ye, now?" Scotty squinted at him, interested. "An' what else d'ye know?"

  "Be surprised," Korax said with an air of importance. He'd been trying to rest his chin on his hand and his elbow on the table for some minutes without success; he somehow couldn't get all the moving parts coordinated. "An', come right down to it, what's difference? Politics! Engineer's an engineer, an' you're the best either side of the Zone, y'old sot." His ancient face took on a crafty look, as if he were about to reveal a great secret. "Khest it, we could use you!"

  Scotty contemplated the bottom of his glass.

  "Helluva recruitin' pitch, that."

  "Best I can offer," Korax said, giving up on the elbow trick at last. "Offer you a ship. Handpicked crew. Command of your own. Think of it!"

  He was overcome by a sudden wave of patriotic fervor; stood abruptly, listing dangerously.

  "Glory of the kill, Skhottih. Think of it. A place in the Black Fleet, Kahlesste kaase! We can get drunk together for all eternity." Korax tried to salute; couldn't do that either. "Kai, Klingon! Kai, Skhottih!"

  "Korax. Korax, lad, easy now!" Scotty helped him back into his chair, looked around to see if anyone was listening; no one was. "This offer of yours, now. It'll take some serious thinking."

  Korax didn't seem to have heard, had lapsed into a sudden stupor. His head sagged onto his arms in the swamp on the table and he started to snore. Scotty was about to give up on him when the snoring broke off and the Klingon roused himself.

  "Kle'tih'bach!" he snarled in 'aase, forgetting where he was.

  "Huh?"

  "Politics!" Korax repeated impatiently, "Reminds me. You want ship, I'll give you one. Even tell you her name. Former commander got himself khest. Babysitting. Gaggle of Fed civvies. Roms stole 'em. Right out from under the Vulcans." Korax was giggling, silly. The hair on Scotty's neck prickled. Was the payoff going to be this easy? Korax had begun to babble. "His commander—old enemy. Like to snatch ship from him. Settle old score. Tolz is mortal enemy. Not like you, Skhottih old enemy, old drunk. Old friend."

  He went on babbling, half in Standard, half in 'aase, fell forward and began to snore again. Scotty leaned over him, shook him gently, whispered in his ear.

  "Korax, lad, tell me. These civvies. Ones the Roms took. Have any idea where they're keepin' 'em?"

  Korax's head shot up suddenly and he glared.

  "toH?" he asked slowly, dangerously.

  "The—the ship, lad," Scotty said quickly. "I was askin' you about the ship. What'd ye say her name was?"

  "Can't—can't remember," Korax muttered, and passed out.

  Scotty breathed slowly, listening to the hammering of his own heart. Well, half a loaf. He finished his
brandy and was about to pour another when two razor-honed young Klin sergeants stalked over to him. Scotty's flesh crawled. Shore Patrol in any uniform made him twitch. He held his ground. The Klingons ignored him, went straight to Korax.

  "Admiral Lord Korax, sir?" one of them inquired formally of the sodden mass snoring on the table. When there was no response he and his companion each grasped an arm and lifted the comatose admiral out of his chair. One of them murmured something under his breath; Scotty didn't need to know any 'aase to understand the word "senile."

  "Best put him to bed, lads," he advised them judiciously, pouring himself yet another in the glare of their yellow eyes. "He's had some rough sailin'. Reminiscing'll do that to ye."

  When the two had trundled the admiral out and the Sulamid waiter arrived to wipe the table, clucking fastidiously, Scotty tossed a few Credits into the mess and walked stiffly toward the Gents' (the only such facility in a Sulamidrun establishment). Once inside he rolled up his sleeve, selected the proper blade on his vintage Scout knife, and removed the tiny subcutaneous transceiver-recorder from the fleshy part of his forearm, slipping it into a hidden pocket. Then he dug deeper to retrieve the ethanol-inhibitor capsule McCoy had concocted to keep him sober through this encounter. This latter item he flushed down the tubes, chuckling to himself.

  Korax, ye poor dolt, he thought. It was the brandy was the tipoff. If ye've ever seen me drink aught but Scotch ye'd know I wasna taking my drinking serious.

  Stone cold sober, Montgomery Scott emerged from the Gents' under the goggling eyes of the Sulamid waiter, sidled up to the bar and ordered a double.

  He was tall even for a Vulcan, and strikingly handsome. More than one human female had stopped to admire him as he strode among the colonnades of the settlement at T'lingShar, and the Deltans were beside themselves. He paid no heed to any of them, but continued on his way with a purposefulness bordering on urgency.