“Good afternoon, Nerys,” Sulan said. “You’re here for Prynn and Elias, yes?” She spoke with a calmness and surety that Kira found somehow both condoling and hopeful.
“Yes, we are,” Kira said, then gestured toward Benjamin. “This is Captain Benjamin Sisko.” Kira typically did not need to introduce the Emissary anywhere on Bajor, but if Sulan recognized him, she gave no indication.
“How do you do, Captain Sisko,” she said. “I’m Ransel Sulan, a nurse here at Vanadwan Hospice.” Looking back to Kira, she said, “Doctor Bashir is already here. Would you like an escort to the room?”
“No, I know the way, Sulan, thank you,” Kira said.
“May you know peace today,” Sulan said, “and going forward.”
They thanked the nurse, and then Kira led Benjamin down another corridor. Doors lined the walls, small signs printed in Bajoran identifying the rooms. More than halfway along the lengthy corridor, Kira stopped at a door and knocked lightly. It opened to reveal Prynn.
“Please come in,” she said. Kira could see that she’d been crying, although she seemed relatively composed. Prynn closed the door after Kira and Benjamin. “Thank you both so much for coming.”
Doctor Bashir came out from the other side of the bed and greeted them, hugging Kira and shaking Benjamin’s hand. Vaughn lay in the bed, really no more than a memory of his former self. He had lost much of his body weight. His face, clean-shaven, looked gaunt, his cheeks hollow almost to the point of collapse. Several machines hovered over him, with a number of tubes reaching from them and down beneath the sheets. The equipment emitted no noises, as they usually did; they clearly still functioned—Kira could see that by the changing readouts—but they had been silenced.
Kira peered past the bed, to the glass doors that led out onto the terrace. They stood open, and the breeze she felt earlier had returned, carrying with it the fresh scents of the outdoors. She felt sure that, if Vaughn had been capable, he would have appreciated the beautiful view.
Benjamin stepped up to the bed, reached down, and rested his hand atop Vaughn’s. Kira noticed that the cloth bag he’d brought with him still dangled from his other hand. “Have a lot of people come?” he asked Prynn.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “It seems that my father touched many lives.”
“I certainly think that’s true of everyone in this room,” offered Julian. Kira nodded her agreement, and she saw Benjamin do the same.
“Word has apparently gotten around Starfleet and beyond, because even though some people my father knew were too busy and too far to come, they still sent word,” Prynn said. “Admiral Akaar, Admiral Nechayev, Captain Picard, Captain Dax . . . John Harriman and Amina Sasine . . . even a Klingon named Lorgh. And so many people have come by. A woman named Drysi Gravenor, who mentored my father back in their Starfleet Intelligence days, came all the way from Alpha Centauri. I’ve also seen just about everybody from the station . . .” Kira saw her choke up for a moment, and knew that, on top of dealing with her father’s demise, she also had to face the loss of so many of her crewmates aboard DS9. “Captain Ro visited, and Colonel Cenn . . . even Quark.”
“Quark?” Benjamin said. “I hope he wasn’t somehow looking to turn a profit from this.”
To Kira’s surprise, Prynn actually chuckled. “He did mention something about auctioning off vacuum-desiccated body parts, but Captain Ro shut him down pretty quickly. Before they left, Quark left a bottle for my father.” She pointed to a small table in the corner beside her, on which a number of items had been placed, including a clear, squarish bottle filled with a fierce red liquid. “It’s Berengarian whiskey. My father never ordered any in his bar, according to Quark, but since he knew that my father was born on Berengaria Seven, he decided that it was somehow appropriate.”
“How much did he charge you for it?” Julian asked.
Prynn didn’t just chuckle, but laughed. “That’s how much of an impression my father made even on Quark,” she said. “It was a gift.”
“In a lot of ways, Prynn,” Kira said, “your father was a gift to all of us.”
Prynn’s eyes became misty. “Thank you, Nerys,” she said. She reached to the foot of the bed and picked up a padd resting there. “Captain, as people have come by, I’ve asked them to bring something with them to read aloud. Some have brought poems, others have read passages from novels, and a couple of people even wrote something themselves. I hope you don’t mind that I picked out something for you, specially for today.”
“That’s perfectly fine, Prynn,” Benjamin said. “But before I read what you’ve selected, I have one more gift to add to your collection.” He lifted the cloth bag he’d brought, opened it, and pulled out an object about the size of one of his old baseballs. Kira recognized it, because Vaughn had brought one back from the Gamma Quadrant. Benjamin stepped forward and handed it to Prynn, exchanging it for her padd. The object’s rumpled surface shimmered, almost alive with the movement of a silvery layer of liquid.
“I know this,” Prynn said. “My father has one of these.”
“Yes,” Benjamin said. “It was a gift to him from the Vahni Vahltupali.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Prynn said.
“I visited their world not that long ago,” Benjamin said, “and they asked about your father.”
“Of course they did,” Prynn said quietly. “He helped save their world.”
“And they haven’t forgotten that,” Benjamin said. He reached forward and plucked at a narrow strip Kira hadn’t even seen, which came loose with a snap. The object unfolded in an instant into a flat sheet, measuring about the size of a companel display. One side showed a beautiful holographic image of a tower, and beyond it, a gleaming city of gentle colors and steel shapes. “This tower,” Benjamin explained, “stands at the center of their capital city. Your father was on it the day it collapsed, when the Vahni moon was destroyed.” Prynn nodded. Kira knew that she’d been aboard Defiant, in orbit of the planet, when that had happened. “They’ve rebuilt, obviously, and there’s a plaque on top of the tower telling the story of how your father and his crew saved their world. When they heard about your father’s condition, they wanted you to have this.”
“Captain, thank you so much for bringing this to me,” Prynn said. “I’ll treasure it.” She studied it a few moments longer, then set it down among the other gifts.
Benjamin held up the padd. “Would you like me to begin reading?”
Prynn turned to Julian. “Doctor?”
“I’ve already begun administering an anodyne,” he said, “which will make your father’s final days painless.”
Prynn nodded, her eyes once more becoming moist. “Whenever you’re ready, Captain.”
Benjamin moved to the foot of the bed, facing Vaughn. Prynn and Julian and Kira all watched him as he lifted the padd and read from it.
“This is ‘Ulysses,’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.” He began to recite the work, a poem written in blank verse. His voice, deep and somber, carried the words with import.
Kira peered at Vaughn as she listened to the first-person narrative of an old king, idled and restless, recalling the many travels of his life. In remembrance, he celebrates both the good times and the ill, spent both among loved ones and in isolation. In all his experiences, the king internalizes what he sees, what he learns, and still hungers for more.
We’re all a part of everything we experience, Kira thought. But it takes a person of . . . what? Strength? Introspection? Honesty? She didn’t quite know. But she thought that it required a man of Vaughn’s particular mix of traits to carry with him all that he’d encountered, to process it, to embrace it, to make it a visible and conscious part of his essential self. Kira did not understand all the literary references, but she thought that the tone of the piece beautifully evoked Vaughn’s spirit.
As Benjamin continued reading, Kira noted the word that the king chose to describe the end of his life: dull. Many people—perhaps most, she thought—would choose a dif
ferent adjective: sad, or heartbreaking, or tragic. But for Elias Vaughn, a man of great wisdom and of great flaws, an explorer of unrelenting passion, the word the poet had chosen—Dull!—seemed absolutely fitting, as if he had penned his work specifically for the captain.
The poem went on to describe what the king would leave behind, and how he would strive to continue a life of note until the very end. Though inevitable, death seemed like one more destination, one more opportunity for exploration. Benjamin read on, and the words flowed with an elegiac beauty.
Kira’s gaze drifted from Vaughn to the man eulogizing him, and she saw tears gliding silently down Benjamin’s cheeks. She peered over at Prynn, and saw her crying as well, and only then did Kira realize that her own eyes no longer remained dry. When she looked at Julian, she saw his tears threatening, but he also concentrated on the task he had been asked to perform. Carefully, he shut down the equipment that, for too long a time, had saved Vaughn’s body from the fate that his mind had already suffered.
Benjamin read the final few lines of the poem.
“. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Mov’d earth and heaven, that which we are, we are:
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Benjamin lowered the padd. Julian deactivated the last medical device, so that machines would no longer force sustenance upon Prynn’s father. With that, whether it took five days, or ten, or fifteen, Elias Vaughn began his final journey.
10
The vase flew across the room and smashed into the wall, bursting in a spray of ceramic fragments, long-stemmed flowers, and water. It felt good to throw it, to physically act out her anger and frustration, and to look upon the results of her small-scale violence. But it solved nothing.
Praetor Gell Kamemor stood on one side of her office, her back bent and her left arm still out before her after grabbing up the vase from her desk and hurling it against the far wall. Slowly, she stood back up, straightening the cut of her modern, deep-blue jacket as she did so. She watched as her grandnephew, Proconsul Anlikar Ventel, turned to face her from halfway across the room, the data tablet in his hand dropping to his side, both of his eyebrows raised in an unmistakable expression of surprise.
“I concur,” Ventel said. “And I’m not sure if any other response is possible.”
Kamemor brought the meaty side of her fist down on her desk, her rage unslaked. “Tomalak,” she said, pointing at the display mounted in the room’s long side wall, tucked in among the full, neatly arranged bookshelves that ran from floor to ceiling. On the screen appeared the frozen image, not of Tomalak, but of Tezrene, the Typhon Pact’s ambassador to the Federation. Earlier that day, Kamemor had received the Tholian’s dispatch, transmitted from the UFP’s capital city and carrying an unsettling message to the praetor from President Bacco. Watching it for the fourth time, studying it for nuance, meaning, and clarity, Kamemor had finally snapped.
“We still don’t really know why or how Tomalak ended up on the Breen freighter,” Ventel said. “Is it at all feasible that there is an explanation that does not implicate him as complicit in what happened in the Bajoran system?”
“I admire your optimism, Anlikar,” Kamemor said, moving out from behind her desk and padding over to him across the shallow, light-gray carpet that covered her office floor. “And I welcome any explanation that would not paint Tomalak as a traitorous warmonger and me as a fool, but I don’t see how that’s possible. According to what you learned from Admiral Devix, your former fellow proconsul requested the assignment as the liaison aboard the Eletrix.” After initially receiving Tezrene’s dispatch, Kamemor had charged Ventel with gathering together whatever information he could about Tomalak’s presence on the joint Romulan-Federation exploratory mission to the Gamma Quadrant. The proconsul had subsequently spoken via subspace with the Imperial Fleet’s leader, Fleet Admiral Devix.
“Actually,” Ventel said, consulting his data tablet, “Admiral Devix told me that Tomalak requested to be placed in command of whatever vessel was selected to join the Enterprise, but that his separation from the Imperial Fleet for roughly a thousand days disqualified him for such a responsibility. After that, he asked to take on the liaison position.”
“Regardless, it’s clear that he wanted to be on that mission,” Kamemor said. “And it seems impossible to me that he was not involved.”
“Considering his position aboard the ship, and the actions we know he took, I don’t see another possibility,” Ventel said. “But if Tomalak was involved, what does that mean? Has he been working at cross-purposes to us all along?”
Kamemor shook her head, thinking of all the policy decisions she had argued over with her two proconsuls. “It’s difficult to know,” she said. “It seemed as though we often enough found positions in common. And when we didn’t . . . well, you know how I try to govern. I like to be persuaded by people with whom I disagree.”
“What we do know,” Ventel said, “is that Tomalak resigned as proconsul and rejoined the Imperial Fleet, where the first action he took was to request an assignment to command the Romulan half of the joint mission with the Federation.” The proconsul absently tapped at the surface of his tablet. “But being on that mission was important enough to him that, when he couldn’t command, he asked for and accepted a lesser position. It therefore seems clear that he must have had an agenda.”
Kamemor considered that, walking across the narrow width of the room and perching herself on the square arm of her violet sofa. “We’ve been told that the likely architect of the Eletrix’s actions in the Gamma Quadrant and in the Bajoran system was the ship’s commander, Orventa T’Jul,” she said. “Could Tomalak have been conspiring with her? Chairwoman Sela’s report not only didn’t place any blame on him; it didn’t even mention him at all.”
“That’s true,” Ventel said, walking over to the sofa and taking a seat. “But as good as they are, the Tal Shiar aren’t perfect.”
“No,” Kamemor said, looking down at Ventel. “But they also aren’t always completely honest.”
Ventel raised one eyebrow. “No, but . . . what does that mean in this context?”
“I don’t know,” Kamemor said. With an arch grin tugging up one side of her mouth, she said, “I certainly don’t want to have to suspect my Tal Shiar chairwoman too. It’s bad enough I have to remove Devix from duty.” Fatigue washed over her, and she pushed herself from the arm of the sofa and down onto its main body. “I actually respect the admiral,” she told Ventel. “He’s been a soldier all his life. He’s fought when he’s been commanded to, and he’s ordered troops into battle, but he has no history of fomenting war, so I really don’t think he’s involved in all this. But he is fleet admiral, so he must be held accountable; the incident at the Utopia Planitia Shipyards happened under his leadership, and now what’s happened out at Bajor.”
“If he’s not involved,” Ventel said, “it could be that there are forces working against him.”
“I’m sure that’s right, just as there are obviously forces working against us,” Kamemor said. “That’s why we’re attempting to scour my government and rid it of traitors.” When she heard herself employ the word traitors, it triggered an uncomfortable association in her mind. “I’m sure that’s probably just what Tal’Aura and Shinzon and Dralath and all my predecessors back to Pontilus used as an excuse to purge themselves of political opposition. ‘They disagree with me, so they must be traitors; execute them.’”
“You’re probably right,” Ventel said. “But we both know that’s not what this is about. Tomalak is actually proof of that. He served as proconsul to Tal’Aura, with whom you almost never agreed politically. Yet after you became praetor, you asked Tomalak to continue in his advisory role. That demonstrates that you’re not averse to—or af
raid of—opposing viewpoints.”
“No, I’m not,” Kamemor said. “But look where Tomalak is now. I’ve been the leader of the Romulan Star Empire for less than six hundred days, and the incident in the Bajoran system is the second rogue military action that’s taken place in that time.” She paused, not wanting to utter aloud what she knew to be true, but knowing she had to face it. “Anlikar, my government is in trouble.”
Ventel did not respond right away, and an uneasy silence rose in the praetor’s office. Finally, the proconsul stood from the sofa and walked toward the screen on the opposite wall, which still displayed the Typhon Pact ambassador to the Federation. Gesturing toward the screen, and obviously making reference to the message that Tezrene had conveyed, he said, “I really thought President Bacco would understand.”
“I hoped she would.”
Ventel turned to face the praetor. “Maybe your message was too subtle,” he suggested. “Maybe she just didn’t understand what you were really saying to her.”
“She understood,” Kamemor said. “Nanietta Bacco is an intelligent woman, with intelligent people around her.” She peered over at the display, at the still-motionless image of Tezrene: her angular, crystalline head, her glowing triangular eyes, the angry-red color of her carapace. President Bacco’s message stated that Tomalak had been captured after being present during the immoral and criminal actions perpetrated by the Typhon Pact in the Bajoran system, and the Tholian ambassador had relayed that to Kamemor in a scream that had all but demanded that Romulus immediately declare war.
Rising to her feet, Kamemor said, “Computer, screen off.” The display faded to black. “I was tired of looking at her,” she told Ventel. “And I’m tired of hearing hysterical voices.”
Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn (Star Trek, the Next Generation) Page 19
