by Diane Duane
It was three more years before the next ship came. The unlucky Balboa came in broadcasting messages of peace and friendship, and was blown to bits by the massed particle beams of a squadron of fifty. After that the Rihannsu grew a little bolder, and went hunting: a task force caught Stone Mountain, to which Balboa had sent a distress call, and captured her by carefully using high-powered lasers to explosively decompress the crew compartments. They towed Stone Mountain home, took her apart, and shortly thereafter added warp drive to their little cruisers.
The Federation considers the war to have begun with the destruction of Balboa. In the twenty-five years of warfare that followed, no less than forty-six Federation task forces of ever-increasing size and firepower went into Rihannsu space to deal with the aggression against them, and even with vastly superior firepower, most of them suffered heavy damage if not annihilation. “I can’t understand it,” says one fleet admiral in a debriefing. “Their ships are junk. We should be able to shoot them down like clay pigeons.” But the huge numbers of the Rihannsu craft made them impossible to profitably engage; even “smart” photon torpedoes could target only one vessel at a time. When there were twelve more climbing up your tail, the situation became impossible. Starfleet kept trying with bigger and better weapons—until two things happened at once: there was a change of administration, and the Vulcans joined the Federation.
The only indication of what the Rihannsu looked like had come from a very few burned and decompressed bodies picked up in space. When Vulcan was discovered, and after negotiation entered the Federation, their High Council was pointedly asked whether it knew anything about these people. The Vulcans, all logic—and selective truth—told the Federation that they were not sure who these people were. There had indeed been some attempts to colonize other worlds, they admitted, but those ships had been out of touch with Vulcan for some seventeen hundred years. The first Vulcan ambassador, a grimly handsome gentleman who had just been posted to Earth, made this statement to the admirals of Starfleet in such a way that they immediately found it politic to drop the subject. But through the ambassador, the Vulcan High Council gave the Federation a piece of good advice. “Make peace with them,” Sarek told the admirals, “and close the door. Stop fighting. You will probably never beat them. But you can stop your ships being destroyed.”
The advice went down hard, and Starfleet tried to do it their own way for several years more. But finally, as Vulcan’s increasing displeasure became plainer, Fleet acquiesced. The war ended with the Treaty of Alpha Trianguli, probably the first treaty in Federation history to have been negotiated entirely by data upload. No representatives of the two sides ever met. The Rihannsu had no interest in letting their enemies find out any more about them than could be revealed by autopsy. They might be back someday.
The treaty established what came to be called the Romulan Neutral Zone, an egg-shaped area of space about ninety light-years long and forty wide, with 128 Trianguli at its center. The Zone itself was the “shell” of the egg, a buffer area all the way around, one light-year thick, marked and guarded by defense/monitoring satellites of both sides. Everything inside the Zone was considered “the Romulan Star Empire,” even though there was as yet no such thing. The Federation was not exactly hurt by this treaty: as far as they were concerned, there were no strategically promising planets in the area. Perhaps they were not looking hard enough. Later some Federation officials would kick themselves when finding out about Rhei’llhne, a planet just barely inside the Neutral Zone in Rihannsu space, and almost richer in dilithium than Direidi.
So the war ended, and as far as the Federation was concerned, for fifty years nothing came out of the Zone, not a signal, not a ship. Perhaps, some thought, the people in there had gotten sick of fighting. Wiser heads, or those who thought they knew what stock the “Romulans” had sprung from, suspected otherwise.
The Rihannsu had stopped fighting indeed, but as for being tired of it, this was unlikely. There was a matter of honor, mnhei’sahe, still to be resolved. So much of the Two Worlds’ economies were poured into starship weapons research that they still have not recovered entirely from the austerity it caused the contributing nations. They rebuilt the defense satellite system to hundreds of times its former strength, and trained some of the best star pilots ever seen in any species anywhere.
They also decided not to make the mistake their forefathers had made with the Etoshans. The Rihannsu scientists spent literally years translating the complete contents of the reference computers of the Federation ships they had so far managed to capture. They realized from what they found that they were one small pair of planets caught between two Empires, and that to survive, they were going to have to have an Empire themselves.
So began the “expansionist” period of Rihannsu history, in which they tackled planetary colonization with the same ferocious desperation they had used to build a fleet out of nothing. They needed better ships to do this, of course. They wound up reconstructing numerous large people-carriers along the ship model, though, of course, with warp drive these craft did not need generation capability. Twenty planets were settled in eighteen years, and population-increase technology was used of the sort that had made ch’Rihan and ch’Havran themselves so rapidly viable. Not all the settlements were successful, nor are they now: Hellguard was one glaring example.
During this period the Rihannsu also developed the warbird-class starship, acknowledged by everyone, including the Klingons and the Federation, to be one of the finest, solidest, most maneuverable warp-capable craft ever designed. If it had a flaw, it was that it was small; but its weaponry was redoubtable, and the plasma-based molecular implosion field that warbirds carried had problems only with ships that could outrun the field. Another allied invention was the cloaking device, which tantalized everyone who saw it, particularly the Klingons.
The Klingons didn’t get it until much later than the Federation did. The Klingons got other things, mostly defense contracts.
The relationship was a strange one from the first. The Rihannsu economy began to be in serious trouble, despite the beginning inflow of goods and capital from the tributary worlds, because of all the funds being diverted to military research. There was also a question as to whether the research was, in fact, doing any good: a warbird out on a mission to test the security of the Neutral Zone ran into a starship called Enterprise and never came back again. At the same time, the Klingon Empire was beginning to encroach on the far side of the Neutral Zone, and the first two or three interstellar engagements left both sides looking at each other and wishing there were some way to forestall the all-out war that was certainly coming. Rather cleverly, the Klingons made overtures to the Rihannsu based on their own enmity with the Federation, and offered to sell them ships and “more advanced technology,” some of it Federation. Everyone, they claimed, stood to benefit from this arrangement. The Neutral Zone border on their side would be “secure,” and the Klingon economy (also in trouble) would benefit from the extra capital and goods.
The deal turned out to be of dubious worth. For one thing, the Rihannsu buying ships from the Klingons was comparable to Rolls-Royce buying parts from Ford. The Klingon ships were built by the lowest bidder, and performed as such. Also, most of the Federation technology the Klingons had to offer was obsolete. But the treaty suited the aims of the expansionist lobbies in Praetorate and Senate, and so was ratified, much to the Rihannsu’s eventual regret. In the meantime, the Rihannsu shipwrights (and some of the ship captains) muttered over the needlessly high cost of Klingon replacement parts, and did their best to tinker the ships into something better than nominal performance. Mostly it was a losing battle. Klingons build good weaponry, but their greatest interest in spacecraft tends to be in blowing them up.
Meanwhile other forces were stirring. The Federation sent the only ship that had been successful with Romulans to see if it could get its hands on the cloaking device. It did, and Enterprise, merely an annoying name before, became a matter
for curses and vengeance. How some of those curses turned out, and what form the vengeance took, other chroniclers have recently covered more completely in the press.
In terms of policy, matters have changed little from that point, some few years ago, to the present day. The Rihannsu lie inside their protected Zone, while their Praetorate and Senate hatch plots, count the incoming funds from the tributary worlds, and look for ways to regain an honor which they never truly lost. Some people in the computer nets (still cherished as a quaint but much-loved relic of the ship days) have ventured the opinion that some kind of overture toward peace should be made. The Federation at least builds decent starships. And, some have said, if the Federation truly wanted to destroy the Rihannsu, why haven’t they come and done it in force? Their resources are presently huge enough to crush the Two Worlds as the little ships swarmed over Balboa, by sheer strength of numbers.
But so many only reply to this line of thought with ridicule. “Cowardice,” they say. Others point out that the Rihannsu, however hostile they may be to the United Federation of Planets, also serve as the Federation’s buffer between them and the Klingons. Annex the Rihannsu spaces (even if they could) and suddenly Federation and Klingon policies come into direct conflict. It makes more sense to let the Rihannsu take the brunt. This argument generates more bitterness among Rihannsu than even the first. Fear of the Rihannsu—that a Rihanha can understand, though he loathes it. But being ignored, or taken for granted, that is the unforgivable. For those who ignore the power of the Two Worlds, no hate will ever be sufficient.
The voices still speak quietly of the old ways here and there: of peace, and nobility, and perhaps even rapprochement with the Vulcans. But that turn of mind has a long way to wait before it comes into vogue in the Praetorate. The Rihannsu in power now are the children of the twenty-five years of blood: their memories are long, and the fear that awoke when Carrizal arrived is still cold in their stomachs at night. Perhaps a hundred years from now, perhaps two hundred, children will be born who will sleep sounder, and think more wisely by day. Until then, the Two Worlds are alone in the long night. Nothing has changed since the ships: the worlds still have walls.
Hope is not dead, of course. Every now and then some one hand reaches out—not necessarily the hand of a great general or statesman—and hits the wall, and a bit of stonework falls down. Perhaps the hands of the little do less than the hands of the great. But there are many more of them, and they tend not to squabble among themselves as much as the great do, nor are they terminally embarrassed by statements like the one heard for so many years on both sides of the Zone, “I don’t understand….” They are the ones likely to work to understand: to find answers, and to share them. As long as this goes on, there is always a chance: and if the small ever manage to teach this art to the great, the Elements Themselves will not contain all the unfolding possibilities, as the walls come down at last.
Chapter Thirteen
McCoy pushed the reader-screen aside and rubbed both hands over his face. Romulan law was one of the most stultifying subjects that he had ever studied, and despite the amount of persuasion he had employed to get a logic-solid reader with an onboard visual translator, there were times—usually deep into the pontifications of some long-dead Senator—when he had the feeling that he would be better employed doing something else, like watching the grass grow. It was intricate, and the older legal terms sometimes refused to translate into even the stilted Federation Standard that the reader produced. There was no such thing as an out, anyway; even the Right of Statement, a standard clause in capital crimes—of which there were an excessive number—was no more than an opportunity to explain or defend the offense for which the speaker would afterward be executed.
At least the implant was giving him no problems other than those anticipated. McCoy had expected a headache, had almost hoped for one, just a little one, something that he could grouse about to intelligence and say I told you so when he got back. Turning a man into a living data recorder—it wasn’t proper. But at least it worked. When the microsolid buried in his cortex memory centers was in operation, his normally excellent memory was enhanced out to auditory and visual eidesis. He remembered everything. And until he mastered the neural impulses that switched the blasted thing on and off, he had to leaf through a mass of data equivalent to the Index XenoMedicalis to find the scribbled margin note that said “socks are in boots, under bed.”
There was information locked into it already, supplied by Bloodwing’s surgeon, t’Hrienteh. Names and faces, the workings of the Senate—t’Hrienteh’s family were highly placed—medical background on Romulan psychiatry and body kinesics. All the things that would make his task on ch’Rihan easier, or at least more straightforward. That was why he had to stay on-planet for long enough to be taken before the Senate and the Praetorate, so that he could interpret what he saw and heard in the light of what he knew. A delicate business at best, and already very dangerous.
McCoy’s chief interest in the Romulan law books was an attempt to find out how long espionage trials might be expected to last, how much time he had to play with before the legal system began to play with him. Using knives…
Arrhae took a step backward from the door, and stared at the two men who had evidently rung the chime a few seconds before. After their parting in i’Ramnau, Nveid tr’AAnikh was the last person on ch’Rihan that she expected to see. “What are you doing here?” she wanted to know. “And who is this?”
Nveid’s companion was a little taller and a little fairer, but the most obvious difference was that while Nveid wore civilian clothing, the other man was in Fleet uniform. “Llhran tr’Khnialmnae,” he said, saluting her. His gaze shifted from her face to the hall behind her, checking that it was empty. “Nveid has spoken to you already about—certain matters. My sister Aidoann was third-in-command of Bloodwing.”
“Llhran is taking a great risk in coming here,” Nveid said. “I told you of the families who supported the action of their kinfolk aboard Bloodwing; House Khnialmnae is one of the more outspoken. Their respect for honor is very high.”
“And what,” Arrhae said through her teeth, “of their respect for the peace and the lives of those who want no part of this madness? I want you to let me alone. And alone is not standing two by two with a surveillance subject on the steps of my master’s house. Go away.”
“Hru’hfe, we should like to speak with H’daen tr’Khellian.” Llhran spoke now in a more formal phase of language, one that made quite clear the difference between a Senior Centurion and a senior servant. “It is a matter concerning the prisoner Mak’khoi.”
“And how much do you two want to offer me…?” H’daen looked down at them from the balcony above the door, his face weary and his voice totally disinterested. “Or are you just taking him away at long last?”
“My lord…?” Nveid was confused, and it showed. Whatever had brought him here, it was nothing to do with helping McCoy to escape. Not yet, anyway. “We wanted to speak to the Federation officer held captive here.”
“Do it. Do whatever you want. Just don’t ask me to get involved again.” He touched his cheekbone just beneath the right eye, where a blue-brown bruise mottled the skin. “Involvement hurts too much.”
“My lord, you are a Praetor, and we—”
“I am a make-weight,” H’daen responded with all the savagery of a man who had too recently discovered that his place in the scheme of things was far lower than he had believed. “The only Praetors you need ask permission of are the young hnoiyikar who believe that wealth and the freedom to employ brutality are all that honor means.” He turned away from them and went indoors.
“So…?” Nveid was watching Arrhae closely, more closely than she liked, and she shrugged dismissively.
“I’ll take you to him and leave you a translator. After that, say what you want out of my hearing. And leave quickly.”
Llhran looked at her, then at Nveid. “Servants have better manners where I come from,”
he said pointedly, and Arrhae blushed.
“Sir, I doubt that servants are so frightened where you come from,” she said, and ushered the pair indoors before either man could think of a suitably cutting response. “If you would follow me, I shall take you to Mak’khoi. And then I have work of my own that needs attention. Evidently”—and she watched Nveid carefully—“the Senatorial Judiciary have decided that their prisoner would feel more comfortable with a familiar face beside him—so before we go to the trial in Ra’tleihfi I must deal with everything that won’t be done while I’m away….”
“You are going to the capital?” Llhran clearly didn’t believe what he was hearing. “A servant?”
“Hru’hfe of an old House, Llhe’,” Nveid said. “Different places, different customs. She’s rather more than just ‘a servant.’”
“Oh.” He didn’t sound convinced.
Not that Arrhae was concerned; she was past worrying about anybody’s opinions other than McCoy’s and her own. “In here,” she said. “That is, if he isn’t in the garden”—and she smiled—“communing with nature….”
McCoy wasn’t, although he probably wished that he were. Instead, he was sitting with his head in his hands, mumbling legal phrases and looking very like a man with a sore head. Which was entirely accurate. Right now, never mind all his other troubles, what Leonard McCoy wanted in all the world was a twenty-mil ampule of Aerosal and a spray hypo. Dammit, he’d settle for three aspirin and a glass of water. He looked at his visitors without much interest, automatically registering their body language—both of them were extremely apprehensive about something or other, and trying not to show it, and the man in uniform had the air of someone whose opinions had been gently but firmly squelched—before turning his attention to their faces. Young faces, closed and wary, but inquisitive for all that. He summoned up a smile and nodded to them, began to shut down the reader’s input-output systems, shutting down his own “onboard” circuitry as he did so. At least that was getting easier. McCoy added the last data-solid to the stack that already filled his little table to overflowing, and wondered if the two Romulans had ever seen a Terran face before. He doubted it.
