by Diane Carey
The neck muscles were twisted like cord and resisted even the razor-sharpness of his dagger blade. The bones of this demon's throat grated fiercely, but he gritted his teeth and applied his strength, and soon the Iraga's lips peeled back to reveal its pointed teeth, and its head flinched off into his hand.
Kellen stumbled back with the force of his own pulling as the last of the ligaments snapped. Before him the Iraga's body winced and jolted, its long fingers scratching at the deck, air sucking with futile desperation into the exposed tube endings through which it had been breathing only moments ago. It was trying to live.
He had no idea whether it would succeed, but he had its head and that was what he needed. Now there would be movement, action against the Havoc, which he had let slip through his grip by failing to destroy the Havoc ship from within when he had the chance. Since then, everything that had happened had done so because of the price of his own life.
He would not make so great an error again. The Klingon who stopped the Havoc would be the icon of the next age.
And more, far more, the disaster to his people and all people would be shoved back into the maw of legend.
With his gut-stained hand he shoved his blade into his belt and clawed for the communicator. The instrument nearly slipped between his wet fingers. If it fell, it would ring the deck as loudly as a klaxon and they would come and find him.
He brought the instrument to his lips. "Qul. Qul. Activate transporter. I have the proof!"
* * *
"This is a mighty odd invasion, as invasions go."
McCoy adjusted the antigrav on Spock's diagnostic bed down another few degrees, then tilted the upper-body section of the bed so Spock could at least feel as if he were sitting up some.
The science officer's computer accesses were still at fingertip convenience and Spock wasn't moving much, but his face had lost its sea-foam pallor. The therapy of work had done him good.
McCoy wished there were something that could do some good for a furious captain whose arms were knotted at his sides and who couldn't seem to stop pacing in bitter rage.
"I've got a crewman murdered by a dignitary with whom I made a treaty, and a potential flashpoint on my hands," he snarled as he swung around and started back toward Spock after coming nose-up to a shelf full of vials. Every time he paced over there he caught a sour vision of himself in a mirror behind the shelves.
It made him madder.
He struck the nearest comm unit and for the fourth time clipped, "Kirk to Security. Progress report."
There was a pause, though he could tell through raw experience that the line was open.
"Captain, Giotto here. We've completed our biosweep. There's no Klingon on board anymore. The general must've gotten off the ship somehow."
Big surprise.
"Understood. Shields up. No more beaming unless I authorize it personally."
"Aye-aye, sir."
He snapped the comm off without acknowledging and twisted back to Spock. "Have you got anything? Anything at all?"
Spock's straight brows furrowed some as the responsibility hit him squarely between them, but he tapped on his keyboards and brought up on the screen a stylized watercolor painting of a creature disturbingly like one of Zennor's party.
"In Klingon legend, the Shushara was a winged demon, or group of demons, given to consuming unsuccessful warriors, beginning with their feet and eating its way up the body while the victim witnessed this and contemplated his failures. Like many other demons, they were ultimately banished, but promised to return with the Havoc to consume the weak. Kellen may see Zennor's crew as a manifestation of the Empire's failure to expand since the establishment of the Neutral Zone by the Federation."
"Havoc is their punishment for having let themselves be contained?"
"Yes," Spock said. He moved his hand to his lap, rather gingerly, slowly, and scooped up the crescent brooch, looking at the scratch of stars and comets upon which Zennor's civilization set its hopes. "Regarding this etching, taking into account the ten differing periods of their standard year and the speed and movement of stars, there is a legitimate corollary in the Danai research. They seem ready to jump to a conclusion, but nothing is disprovable yet. Any arrangement of stars may look like something else five thousand years later from any angle of your own choosing. I must admit, though, this is an excellent correlation to this particular stellar group, given the millennia and the constant movement of celestial bodies. I find myself deeply impressed that they managed to do this, especially from across the galaxy, Captain. The technology—"
"Not the technology now, Spock. How likely is it that this is the actual place?"
Spock let the brooch slip back onto his thigh and moved his eyes to Kirk. "Not very likely."
Kirk flattened his lips. "As I understand it, Zennor and Garamanus are competing for the loyalty of their crew. Garamanus is, more or less, the spiritual force aboard, like the priests who went on board the ships of the Spanish Armada and were the political force that the captain had to deal with. When Zennor didn't move to destroy us and the Klingons, Garamanus had a reason not to trust him. Zennor's required to take certain steps. If he doesn't take them, Garamanus can have him removed."
"And one of those steps," McCoy prodded, "is to prove that we're the conquerors, whoever they were?"
"Or that we're not. 'Conqueror' to them is like saying Kodos the Executioner to us. We have to establish that we weren't involved in the conquest that banished their civilization and that they have come to the wrong place to look for their home."
"They have ferocious religious beliefs, evidently," Spock said, "and these have taken care of them over the generations."
"But Zennor seems to be some kind of agnostic," Kirk added. "He wants our help to disprove that we're the conquerors. Their priests have settled on this area for their own reasons, and the scientists have been afraid to challenge. They put all their cultural energy into coming here, but Zennor doesn't want to come here and become just another conqueror. He has a mission inside his mission—to disprove the mission."
"Interesting," Spock murmured. "The galaxy is prohibitively huge, Captain, and they have risked everything to come to this one area. Either way, the trip is one-way for Zennor and his crew. No matter what happens, they cannot go back. They are here now. Such commitment takes great fortitude. I am impressed with Vergo Zennor for taking on convictions above and beyond belief in his assignment."
"So am I," Kirk said with a reckless sigh.
"The priests of their culture are taking this as hard fact," McCoy said, holding out a hand to Spock. Then he looked at Kirk. "They'll only take hard fact to knock it down. What're we going to do?"
Kirk glowered at the edge of the bed, not really seeing it. "If we go there and there's no such planet around the star they've targeted, or there is a planet but there's never been life on it, then their plan falls apart. Zennor wants it to fall apart, but we have to go there to pull it down."
"Vergo Zennor believes his ship can stand up to a Klingon fleet attack," Spock said. "I have checked and double-checked their vessel, and yes, it is powerful and may be able to stand down a squadron of patrollers. But a fleet of heavy cruisers—I tend to doubt."
"I don't want to find out," Kirk said. "If it comes to that, I'll have to side with Zennor. The Klingons are being completely irrational about this. They're acting on an instinctive level."
"I can understand it," McCoy offered. "Our crew's having the same reaction. And so am I. These people look … I don't know, familiar somehow. Even though I've never seen anything that looks like any of them before."
"Regardless, I've got a decision to make. Do I violate Klingon deep space now that I've put my foot in this? Or do I abandon Zennor at the Neutral Zone and see to myself? No, scratch that. I've made a commitment to the situation."
The doctor frowned. "Jim, shouldn't you ask permission from Starfleet Command before you make any tactical movements farther into Klingon space?"
/> "I've already been given permission once. Why ask again and give them a chance to say no? Those orders aren't withdrawn. The mission isn't over. It's still my option. I won't hand that option away to a bureaucrat. All right, Spock, you've found a thread—follow it. In the meantime, I'm going to let Zennor set the pace. He knows the pressures he's dealing with and I believe him when he says he wants to knock the knees out from under the driving forces. There's a short road to defusing this situation and unfortunately it leads directly into Klingon territory."
Scooping up the crescent brooch, Kirk rubbed his thumb across the etching on the inner curve, then held it out before them.
"This is it, gentlemen," he said. "If we can disprove this, the invasion falls apart."
The crew of the Imperial patrol cruiser Qul shrank back like beaten children, huddled into the recesses of the bridge, and covered their faces with shuddering hands. Before them writhed the unthinkable, the incarnate, twisting between the fingers of General Kellen as he held high the proof of Havoc.
Kellen felt like a living beacon as he held the straining tentacles of the Iraga before his witnesses.
"All screens on! Broadcast this on all frequencies to the squadron and on long-range to the fleet and all Imperial receivers, wide dispersal! There will be no more doubt!"
No one moved. Aragor, Mursha, Karg, Rek, Horg—they all stared with eyes like eggs at the thing in his hands, which stared back with its slowly blinking green eyes and moved its lips in ghastly beckoning at them.
"Quickly!" Kellen roared. "Before it dies!"
Chapter Twelve
"THE SHIP IS RUN at sublight speed by an internally metered pulse drive. We call it impulse."
"We have something similar."
"I know you do. There's quite a bit that's similar about your civilization and ours. If we can reach an understanding, perhaps your people will be satisfied to settle here and exchange knowledge, share a few things."
"Vergokirk … you underestimate the passion of my civilization. You are too comfortable in your identity. You and your friends, and the Klingons and others here, all have a sense of home. You all know where you came from. You have no doubt in your souls about defending it. When we find our space, we will defend it."
Each corner of the captain's cabin and office had been thoroughly roamed, and now Zennor had found himself the most amenable corner from which to contemplate the place and people among whom he now found himself. He hovered behind the perforated privacy partition, which cast a gridlike pattern of shapes and shadows upon his face and form. Standing there in the dimness, he was as bizarre a visage as Jim Kirk had ever seen.
"You say that with great conviction, but I'm not sure I accept what you say," Kirk told him. "You've admitted you think the evidence is too scant."
"Scant or not, it is taken as religion now." Zennor turned to Kirk, and his bony face was terrible as it caught the brittle shadows. "I do not believe you are the conquerors."
Strange how his words were so antithetical to the appearance of this enigmatic alien. He was indeed a ghastly visage hovering there in the shadows, the light designed mostly for humans stamping in confusion across the angles and twists of his skull and horns. And it had no idea what to do with those eyes.
"If we find this is the wrong space, we can live among your Federation. There is something here upon which to build, and my people are builders."
"And we'll welcome you," Kirk said. "We'll welcome you right now, if you'll let us."
Before Zennor could answer, the comm unit behind Kirk twittered and he turned to it. "Kirk here."
"McCoy, Captain. As soon as you can, would you please come down to sickbay? I've got an emergency and I believe you should know about it."
Abruptly interested, Kirk pressed his elbow to the comm and leaned closer. "Is Spock all right?"
There was a pause. "It's something else, Captain. Please come alone."
Come alone? What was that supposed to mean?
Instantly he knew what it meant. Leave Zennor up here, something's been found out.
"If you'll excuse me," he said quickly, "my first officer was severely injured this morning and I think my ship's surgeon is trying to cloak any weaknesses in my staff. If you wish to leave here, push this button and Security will answer. They'll escort you back to the bridge or to the others in your party. As I understand it, they're enjoying their tour of the ship."
* * *
"Bones? What's going on?"
Sickbay's main door panel to the corridor closed behind Kirk.
"I'm in here, Captain," McCoy called, and appeared in the doorway of an auxiliary examining room.
Kirk glanced into the main ward, where Spock was confined, but didn't go in there. "All right, what's your crisis?"
"Captain," the doctor said, "there's been a murder."
As he looked at McCoy's sober face and hoped for a punch line, Kirk felt his feet go cold. "You mean, other than Brown? A second one?"
"Yes. But not one of our crew. This is one of Captain Zennor's people. It was just discovered about twenty minutes ago. Security delivered the body down here and I instructed them that I would notify you."
Ramifications tumbled across Kirk's mind, piling one upon the other. A visitor from an alien vessel in a volatile situation, murdered. Here.
Horrible.
But only a little more horrible than the body McCoy led him to. This wasn't just a murder. This was a slaughter.
Kirk stood over the mutilated cadaver lying on its slab in the lonely and so rarely used morgue, unfortunately today occupied by the bodies of crewmen killed in the land battle with the Klingons. In a few days, they would be buried in space with full honors, once matters at hand were dispensed with and the crew could adjust to the loss of shipmates. It was never easy.
This, though—this thing on the slab …
He cleared his throat. "Where's the head?"
"I don't know," McCoy said straightaway. "We haven't been able to find it. I suspect—"
"That Kellen took it with him."
"Then you do think he did it?"
"We'll know in a minute." He reached for the comm on the wall, the least-used one on the ship. "Kirk to Security."
"Security, Hakker."
"Do a biosweep of the ship for Klingon biological readings. Hail sickbay with the results."
"Right away, sir."
"Kirk to bridge."
"Bridge, sir."
"Bring the ship to double yellow alert. And hail the Klingon fleet."
"One moment, sir."
The moment was a long, ugly one. Kirk stared at the remains, and McCoy stared at Kirk, both supremely aware of each other.
"What're you going to do?" McCoy finally asked when the pressure got to him.
"I don't know," Kirk said. "But I have to decide the next move, or Kellen will decide it for me."
"How could he get off without tripping some alarm somewhere?"
"I'd get off."
"Captain, bridge. The Klingons refuse to answer our hail, sir."
"Any movement out there?"
"None yet, sir."
"Notify me if there's the slightest change. Kirk out."
Stiff-lipped and severe, he circled the foot end of the corpse.
Its pale hands were chalky with lack of life, long fingernails nearly blue now, and there seemed to have been very little blood, or whatever fluids this creature possessed. Its clothing was nearly pristine. There hadn't been much of a struggle, but considering Kellen's strength and experience, that was no surprise.
"You didn't do an autopsy, did you?"
"I wouldn't do that without consent," McCoy said with a touch of pique. "I sterilized the body and had the scene of the crime searched and sealed off. If they want it back, or want back any of this jewelry it's wearing, we're prepared to comply. By the way, look at this." He plucked up the round bronze piece hanging from the chain, similar to Zennor's and all the others'. "This medallion isn't a medallion. Did you notic
e? It's a mirror."
He turned the oblong disk over to the undecorated side, and sure enough there was a crudely polished surface there that could be used as a mirror when held up by what now looked like a small handle.
"They each carry a little mirror?" Kirk looked, but didn't touch. "Why would they do that?"
"I certainly don't know. Would you carry a mirror if you looked like that? But, Jim, there's something else. If you'll come with me …"
He led the way into a smaller examining room, where a normally clean metal experimentation table was cluttered with a matte of shredded cloth and separated piles of what appeared to be dried leaves, nuts, hair, and some kind of chips.
"What's all this?"
"I found it on the body. Take a look."
At closer examination Kirk realized what he was looking at. "It's the doll. Each of them carries one. You dissected a doll? This is a new low for you, isn't it?"
"It's more efficient than reading the handwriting on a wall. Besides, it smelled funny and I wanted to see why. Now, take a closer look."
"Yes, I see it. It's got strings in its head and clothes like that. The doll looks like them."
"No, no. It looks like him." McCoy pointed at the headless corpse. "With the head on, I mean. Look at it."
Irritated and impatient, Kirk pointed at the doll, whose guts lay spread all over the table, but whose little wormy head was still mostly intact. "I don't get your meaning."
"That corpse is of that species and the doll is also, but look closer. It's got the same features, the same coloring, the same hair—well, yarn—and it's missing the same finger that the corpse has been missing for most of his life."
"You mean, if one of them loses a finger he cuts it off his doll?"
"A finger, or whatever they've got. And one leg is a little shorter than the other, just like the corpse, and it's got the same scars marked on it as the real body has. And it's wearing tiny versions of the same jewelry that's on the body. Jim, this doll isn't just any doll. It's a poppet."
