It was a sterile place, gloomily lit, the atmospherics hissing ominously, the clearsteel walls cold to the touch. In the event of all-out war the two ends of the station would be sealed off and the umbilical literally pulled apart as each side scrambled to retreat as far inside its own territory as possible before the shooting started, and woe betide anyone caught between the airlocks at such a time. A few years back, when a Rom bird of prey had slipped invisibly out of the Zone to disintegrate Earth Outposts 2, 3 and 4 before being stopped by Enterprise, the station had gone on All Alert and severed the umbilical for the first and hopefully last time, propelling six civilians—three from each side—out into space.
The three outposts and the border station had been rebuilt at Rihannsu expense as part of their reparations following the bird of prey incident, and the terms had almost brought the Praetor down. Perhaps somewhere in the back of his long memory he had thought that snatching the Warrantors of the Peace would somehow make amends for the incident.
But when it came right down to it, no one knew what was in the Praetor's mind except the Praetor, and it made no difference to those walking down the endless length of the umbilical (another 250 meters, Sulu told himself, another two hundred, another—), the sound of their own footsteps echoing off the frigid clearsteel walls.
Was it Sulu's imagination, or had the Tellarite begun to quicken his pace? The old man's stiff-kneed shamble had been replaced by the stride of a much younger being. As they passed through the airlock on the Fed side at last, Sulu gave the Tellarite a stunned look. He had somehow shed a generation in the minutes they'd spent in the umbilical.
"Special Agent Gadj," the Tellarite reported, flashing his ID at the bewildered Sulu. "Specializing in creating diversions so the real stuff can get through. Welcome home, Commander. Buy you a drink before we phone the Ice Man?"
"Think I'd like to use the head first," a delighted Sulu said, grinning deliriously.
"Understood," Gadj grinned back.
Twelve
THE RIHANNSU FLAGSHIP described a low departure orbit, appearing as a small unblinking light moving steadily across the unfamiliar starfield above the barren planetoid. Cleante knelt on an upper bunk and peered out one of the high windows, watching it go. She thought of what the Commander had said to them before she left.
"We Rihannsu are reared in the military as a matter of course," she had explained, standing in the hatchway of her scout in the dusty compound, armed and in full regalia, an impressive figure, strongly beautiful. Was it possible her attitude toward her prisoners had softened somewhat during her stay here? "Though some of us have other talents. I pride myself on being no mean diplomat. I will do all in my power to see that the remaining obstacles to your repatriation are put down. It will be a matter of weeks, in my judgment, perhaps less."
She actually smiled at Cleante, though it was a calculated smile, a diplomat's smile, meant to reassure without necessarily having any substance behind it. Cleante was reminded of her mother's professional smile and had to force herself to smile in return.
The look the Commander gave T'Shael was cryptic and almost challenging—a reminder of her pledge. The Vulcan acknowledged it with silence; she required no reminder.
"I dislike leaving you in the custody of that two-legged animal," the Commander said, her eyes narrowing in the direction of what were now Kalor's headquarters. "But my orders are exact on that point. Worry not. He knows what will happen to him if either of you are harmed."
She stepped into the scout with no further farewell. Cleante suppressed a shudder, wondering if even the Rihannsu's authority could control Kalor's sadism from such a distance. It would be an uneasy few weeks at best.
The small moving glow across the night sky flickered and vanished as the flagship broke out of orbit and headed toward deep space. Cleante dangled her legs idly over the edge of the bunk as Jali had been wont to do; she caught herself doing this and slid down. Better not to think too often of those who had died.
She had not said a single word to T'Shael since her recovery, not knowing how to break the silence. Would T'Shael hate her for breaking her promise, for seeking help? It was a chance she had had to take. Anything to save her friend. Anything.
The human was startled to find the Vulcan contemplating her from across the room with an expression of uncharacteristic warmth. T'Shael's eyes no longer burned with their febrile incandescence; that had been replaced with a deep and possibly ineradicable sadness. But where Cleante had expected reproach she instead found acceptance, even—affection?
"I thought you'd hate me," she said simply.
T'Shael shook her head.
"Not possible."
"Why? Because hatred is an emotion?"
"Because my logic was flawed and you dared correct it, even at the risk of destroying our friendship. To take such a risk is to confirm the value of such friendship. I am honored."
Cleante puzzled over this, abandoning it with a shrug.
"That's too Vulcan for me," she admitted with a small laugh.
She felt suddenly euphoric. They were both alive, T'Shael's crisis was past, and there was hope that they would soon be freed. Most of all, T'Shael was not angry with her. If only Kalor were somewhere across the galaxy instead of only across the compound! She would not think about that.
"How do you feel?" she asked T'Shael, then quickly rephrased to spare herself the standard lecture on emotion. "I mean, what are you thinking? It must be very strange for you."
"Indeed," the Vulcan said. "It is strange to find an emptiness where for so long there was the presence of another consciousness. Stalek and I knew nothing of each other, yet our minds were locked together in this way. I am aware that I was powerless to prevent his death; nevertheless there is this emptiness … It is much like what I experienced when Resh'da and Jali and Krn died—a helplessness to prevent, which logically implies Mastery of the Unavoidable, yet—"
She stopped, looked at the human with frank bewilderment. How to explain the essence of emptiness, the realization that she, melancholy pilgrim, was for the first time in her life totally alone, completely severed from all connection with her species or any individual therein? Assuming she ever returned to Vulcan, what awaited her? What would be her place? She was an unwed female with no living kin, sole survivor of the inferno of pon farr. T'Shael knew of no precedent to her situation. Yet why burden the human with this?
"I do not know what I think, nor how I feel," she said. "Your original choice of words was perhaps more accurate—I feel this thing, inasmuch as I am unable to rationalize it, reduce it to logic … I begin to understand why my people have suppressed all emotion for over a millennium."
Cleante had no answer for this. Would T'Shael do the same, withdrawing from all she'd hungered to learn in their time together? Was the human responsible for this? A long and fragile silence ensued.
"I broke my promise to you," Cleante dared at last.
"It was a promise you should never have been called upon to make," T'Shael said at once. She took a deep breath, gathering herself. "Your breaking of it has spoken more to me than any logic I know. It has spoken to me of love."
Cleante smiled, suddenly shy.
"You asked me to do that back on Vulcan. I'm sorry I took so long."
She saw T'Shael's eyes flicker with distress and hastened to reassure her.
"I'm only teasing. Oh, please don't take everything I say so seriously! Listen to me. I said back then that I'd be your friend, whether or not you chose to be mine. Whether you carried your father's sickness or not. Whether either of us was struck by lightning or swallowed by the ground or lived to the next millennium. Through Klingons and Rihannsu and pon farr and all our differences, through life and through death if necessary, T'Shael. I meant it then and I mean it now."
"What you speak of is beyond the standard, human concept of friendship," the Vulcan said slowly, gently. Cleante held her breath, dared not speak. "What you ask will not be easy—for either of u
s." T'Shael found the words less painful than she might have thought. "The Vulcan friendship mode is a crucible. There is that in it which can purify, refine, strengthen. There is also that which can immolate, destroy."
"It hasn't exactly been a barrel of laughs so far," Cleante said with a wry smile. "Although I have to admit it's been … interesting."
"And you have endured," T'Shael said, more open than she had ever been before. "And continue to endure. Through life and death and all our differences, then, Cleante alFaisal, my more-than-worthy. My t'hy'la."
"Thy'la," Cleante repeated softly.
Kalor and a sea of troubles might have been transported to the far ends of the galaxy.
But Kalor was still very much with them.
The first thing he did in his new role as commander of the prisoners' encampment was to leave their cage unlocked.
"He couldn't have forgotten," Cleante said, watching the door swing open at her touch. "What do you suppose he's up to?"
"Unknown," T'Shael replied. "But in view of Klin sexual taboos, you might do well not to venture outside."
"I'd forgotten!" Cleante clapped her hand over her mouth in horror, remembering her first encounter with Krazz half a lifetime ago. Then she laughed, a shadow of her old nervous laugh. "Oh, well, it's sort of a built-in safety factor, isn't it? As long as Kalor can't lure me outdoors …"
"Perhaps," T'Shael said vaguely, not at all certain that this was Kalor's reasoning.
She had no doubt he was still formulating experiments to try on his remaining prisoners despite the Rihannsu Commander's dictate. If she and Cleante were now confirmed as t'hy'la, the strength of their bonding would no doubt soon be tested.
The test came sooner than even T'Shael could have anticipated.
She and her scrub bucket arrived on Kalor's doorstep the morning after the Rihannsu had left, ready to resume where she had left off. As far as the Vulcan was concerned, her pledge to serve the Klingons was still in force.
Kalor had celebrated the end of the pointed-ears' governorship by smashing the neck off a fresh bottle of liquor and drinking himself to the verge of a stupor. But only dead drunk could he turn off the machine that hummed endlessly in his brain, plotting and planning. He would not allow himself the luxury of getting that drunk. The machine continued to hum, and the Vulcan's arrival clicked several diabolical calculations into place. Kalor's lizard eyes glinted at her coldly.
"Get out of here, Vulcan!" he slurred. "If I see one more thing with pointed ears I'll puke!"
"As you wish," T'Shael said. She was halfway across the compound when Kalor came roaring after her.
"You, Vulcan! Stand where you are!"
T'Shael turned on her heel to see him tightening his weapons belt and stalking toward her. She saw to her relief that Cleante had not come to the door of the cage; she had not heard, and need not witness whatever was about to happen.
The Vulcan shifted her housekeeping tools into one hand, readying herself. She could defend herself against an unarmed Klingon, but not if he drew his disruptor. She did not consider retreating to the relative safety of the cage; to remind one such as Kalor of his species' taboos might be incentive enough for him to break them.
Kalor might be drunk, but he wasn't stupid. He knew what hidden strength lay in that fragile form, and whipped out the disruptor while he was still several meters from T'Shael, his lizard eyes promising her no quarter if she resisted. T'Shael stood unwavering. In the wake of pon farr her senses were abnormally acute, her skin hypersensitive; she did not wish to touch or be touched by anyone. Cleante had understood, had not so much as come near her since her ordeal. If Kalor were to discover her weakness he would exploit it to the fullest. T'Shael locked in her Mastery of the Unavoidable and waited.
Kalor wasted no time. He grabbed the front of her uniform, twisting it hard across her chest with one rough hand, pressing the disruptor against her ribs with the other. He towered over her, his breath hot and foul with drink.
"Say you're afraid of me, Vulcan!" he hissed. T'Shael did not answer. Kalor wrenched the fabric of the uniform tighter until another female would have cried out. "Say it!"
"It would not be true," T'Shael said evenly.
The Klingon thrust her away from him into the dust, scattering the cleaning utensils, then grabbed her by the hair and forced her to her feet again. He pressed himself against her from behind, the disruptor hard against her spine, his voice harsh in her delicate ear.
"That was quite a show you put on for our visitors," he hissed, caressing her cheek now with the muzzle of the disruptor. "You Vulcans are not the sexless monoliths you pretend. If your freak-eared cousins hadn't been underfoot I would have matched your lust with mine."
T'Shael's Mastery faltered for an instant. Her shame had been witnessed by this one, then. She gathered herself. The Klingon preys upon the weakness of others.
"If it is your desire to take me you have the power to do so," she said flatly. "The histrionics are unnecessary."
Kalor released his grip on her, though he kept his weapon ready.
"You would go with me willingly?" he demanded, Klingon-suspicious.
"Never willingly," T'Shael replied. She did not so much as brush the dust from her uniform, yet she had dignity. "But I am powerless to prevent the exercise of your will. The Rihannsu Commander's dictate notwithstanding."
She had him there. Rape constituted permanent damage to the prisoners, and would cost Kalor his life. He slung the disruptor into his belt with a disgusted gesture.
"I might as well seek pleasure from a block of ice," he sneered, a lifetime of abrupt, brutal gratification snatched mainly by force suddenly sticking in his craw, clinging to his charnel soul, gagging him. "I won't give you the satisfaction!" His lizard eyes glinted evilly. "The human will be far easier to persuade."
He did not take a full step toward the cage before T'Shael threw herself across his path.
"Will you risk your life against the Commander's orders?" she asked, rapidly calculating what little real bargaining power she had against him.
"I take no orders from Roms!" Kalor roared.
He was loud enough to bring Cleante to the transparency. Only a small pleading gesture from T'Shael prevented the human from rushing across the compound to intercede for her friend.
T'Shael realized that Kalor was more crazed then drunk, that the Rihannsu's prolonged stay had tipped him over a kind of edge, that he would continue his sadistic experiments though it meant the death of his prisoners and subsequently his own. Was there a logic she could use to deflect that madness, at least for a time, to save Cleante?
"The human will not acquiesce to your demands," she said quickly, calculating. "You will have to force her, and I suspect that would be incompatible with the nature of your experimentation."
Kalor's eyes narrowed and his fist came up instinctively.
"What do you know about it?" he demanded, taking a step toward her, menacing.
"I caution you: the human is watching," T'Shael said quietly, noting his nervous darting glance toward the transparency. He did still value his own safety, then. "If you intend to continue your research despite the Rihannsu dictate, you will require a voluntary subject."
"Meaning you." Kalor said slowly. It was all too simple, too treacherous. "But you said you'd never go with me willingly. Now you're contradicting yourself. Explain!"
My words were that should you desire sexual gratification I would go with you, but never willingly. You cannot expect me to feign pleasure any more than you can elicit fear where none exists. I will serve your purpose, in whatever manner you decide, on one condition."
"You dare to bargain with me?" Kalor roared. "I could kill you where you stand!"
"And in so doing condemn yourself to death," T'Shael replied.
Some small part of her mind marveled at the words that came out of her mouth. She who had been known for the quality of her silences was transformed by her own rootlessness and her need to save one
other.
Kaiidth! She would bargain with the Klingon and she would win, though the winning kill her. The crucible of the t'hy'la could also immolate.
Kalor seemed to be wrestling with some monumental decision. His savage face twisted under the strain of his intellectual battle. Since when did the prisoner bargain with her jailer, the subject with her keeper?
"Just out of curiosity—I don't say I'll agree—what is this 'condition' of yours?"
"That your experiment begins and ends with me," T'Shael said without hesitation. "You will give me your word that you will not harm the human, neither lay hands on her, nor subject her to duress either physical or mental, nor force her to do anything against her will, and that the Rihannsu will return to find her exactly as she is now."
"You'd accept the word of a Klingon?" Kalor was incredulous.
"A Klingon also has honor," T'Shael said. "When it serves his interest in xenopsychology."
If the human hadn't been watching, Kalor might have struck her again. Instead he contained his anger. It would work its way out in his experiment, which would be a diabolical one.
"All right," he nodded slowly. "I'll accept your bargain. But I, too, have a condition. I want to know what you'll tell the Roms when they return. Assuming I don't arrange for your accidental death before they do."
"I shall tell them that my actions were voluntary. That much is true. Extenuating circumstances are of no matter."
The Klingon weighed this, still smelling treachery. He whose ideology was rooted in deviousness was at a loss to deal with such relentless honesty.
"Go back to your cage," he growled at last. "The door will remain unlocked. Return to my quarters at nightfall and we will seal our bargain."
"As you wish."
"I remember the Vulcan aboard the border ship," Kalor mused almost to himself. "I was very young. My first deep space voyage."
He stopped. Such personal details were none of the Vulcan's business, unless of course he were to give her a graphic description of exactly what he and his crewmates had done to her compatriot. He would enjoy that, if he thought he could get a reaction out of her. Well, she'd have enough to react to before this night was over, kai Kahless!
Dwellers in the Crucible Page 26
