“Don’t tempt me,” said Jekri.
“Karel!” rebuked Dammik gently. “That is not the Vulcan way. We will share our information with all seekers. Surely Surak would be pleased that one so well-placed in the government is interested in learning about Vulcan culture.” Her dark eyes returned to Jekri, and though the old woman had given no hint that she possessed the skill of telepathy, Jekri felt as though that gaze bored into her soul. She shook the thought away.
“She does not wish to learn Vulcan culture!” continued Karel. “She wants to trick us, to trap us!”
Before Jekri spoke, a young woman, barely out of puberty, replied, “That would not be logical, Uncle. She already knows enough to convict us or she would not have been able to identify Grandmother. You are thinking with your emotions, not your mind.” The girl turned to regard Jekri with her grandmother’s piercing gaze. “Although,” she said, “It is possible that the honored chairman wishes to learn Vulcan skills in order to exploit them, not use them in accordance with IDIC.”
“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, I know,” replied Jekri tersely. “I will be honest with you.” She lowered her weapon, knowing that the gesture would be interpreted as a trusting one. “I am no idealist. I am interested in my personal security, and any mental skills I can learn from you would further that very important goal. Look at it this way. You could betray me as easily as I could betray you.”
Some of them bought the lie, but the oddly mature girl only smiled slightly. “Hardly,” the girl replied. “You can arrest us. We have no means to do the same without risking our own safety.”
“Fair enough.” Jekri liked this girl. “You seem like someone I can talk to—” She lifted an eyebrow in question.
“Tarya,” the girl replied. “And the final decision lies with my grandmother.”
“Well, Dammik? Teach the chairman, or go to prison?”
“Logic dictates that I have no choice but to tell you what you wish to learn,” Dammik answered.
“I’m beginning to like logic,” said Jekri.
Once their leader had spoken, the others fell in line, though it was clear that many of them mistrusted her. They tried to tell her about the children’s toys, which contained the syllabic nucleus of the Vulcan language, but Jekri wasn’t interested in learning to speak the language of emotionless pacifists. They then started to read from the ancient tome in Dammik’s lap, but Jekri interrupted.
“I did not come for a history lesson,” she snapped. “I wish to learn about the mental disciplines. Controlling emotions, thoughts, the nerve pinch, mind-melding.”
“You are not Vulcan,” replied Tarya pertly. “How do you expect to be able to mind-meld when your biology isn’t the same?”
“We both descended from the same common ancestor,” Jekri retorted. “In evolutionary terms, the schism was not so long ago. Romulan and Vulcan brains should be identical.”
“Similar, but not identical,” said Dammik. “The Vulcans have spent centuries actively training their brains to work in certain ways. We have neglected these areas and they have fallen into disuse, like a limb will if it is not exercised.”
“This is not what I came here to be told, old woman,” said Jekri menacingly.
“Lies will not endear you to our cause,” Dammik said placidly.
“I do not care about your cause. Come, surely there must be something!” Jekri burst out.
“We can begin with this—controlling your outbursts,” said Dammik. “I imagine such a skill would be extremely useful to the chairman of the Tal Shiar.”
“My temper is under my control.”
“Perhaps, when you deem it to be useful. Perhaps when you are negotiating with an ambassador, or the Praetor, or the Empress, you can control what you say and how you behave.” Dammik leaned forward. “But you must learn to control it at all times. You must not insult a child whose plaything has made you trip, or a servant who has prepared the wrong food, or an old woman who is doing her best to help you because she senses you are in danger.”
Jekri stared. Slowly, Dammik smiled. “I am not a telepath,” she said softly, “but it does not require one to read your mind. Why else would you come to us with such an offer of clemency?”
Jekri chose not to protest. “Then help me,” she said.
They began by doing a group meditation. Jekri was jumpy and anxious to plunge right into more active exercises and had trouble following Dammik’s instructions to calm her mind and slow her breathing. Her mind was as active as a nei’rrh, flitting from branch to branch, idea to idea. Reluctantly, she admitted that Dammik was right about her. She did not have the level of control she wanted; she merely had suppression. That was something quite different.
“Keep bringing your mind back to the rhythm of your breath.” Dammik’s voice floated to Jekri, who had not, at that moment, been concentrating on the rhythm of her breath but rather on the Empress, Lhiau, and her chances of success. She did not want to concentrate on her breath, she wanted to—
No. This was the key. In her heart of hearts she knew it. Control began here, at this moment, with this single thought, this single breath. There. She did it once, she could do it again. She inhaled, held the breath for an instant, exhaled through her nostrils. It was not so hard.
“Now,” said Dammik, “go deeper. Feel the breath in your blood, in every cell. Loosen your jaw.” Jekri’s was clenched, and obediently she parted her upper and lower jaw, keeping her lips closed. Better.
Go within. Inside was the control she sought. At the very core of Jekri Kaleh’s identity, safe from fear, from worry, from desire. She found her inner center, and approached it with not a little awe. All her will, her determination, her grit—it was not these things that were her strength. It was this quiet pool in the cavern of her soul. She could almost see it as a cavern, cool and dark and moist. In her mind’s eye, she knelt at the obsidian pool that was her heart, cupped the liquid, and drank deep of her inmost self.
This would be her shield. This would be her victory.
This would break Lhiau’s hold on the Romulan people.
The thought was joy incarnate.
INTERLUDE
THE RECOGNITION WAS VAGUE, BUT IT WAS THERE. THE Entity knew this place, though it could not determine how. Names came into its consciousness: Baneans. Numiri.
There had been people here once. Feathers? Something about feathers, and a knowledge of the mind. Great science was here, and great rage. Now, there was only a desolated planet. Any life that was here was primitive: grasses, microbes, bacteria. Great sorrow welled inside the Entity, for the presence of the wrong things was great here, and it knew it was their darkness that had turned a cool war into devastation.
It swept through the star system, mourning. It embraced the barren planet and obtained knowledge, it did not know how, that pain and torture had been part of the depletion of the planet. The Baneans had used their knowledge of the brain as a weapon, forgetting higher, more enlightened goals; the Numiri, not needing much urging, had retaliated with a violence that had forever rendered this planet unable to support life.
Were they extinct, the Baneans and the Numiri? Had they slain one another down to the last individual? The Entity did not know. But one thing was certain: the dark matter had done this. The Entity gathered the wrong things up, containing them, purging the poor wounded planet from their continuing malice, and, grieving the tragedy, moved on.
CHAPTER
10
THE BRIDGE WAS ILLUMINATED WITH BLOODRED LIGHT. On the screen were eight heavily armed vessels of a race as yet completely unknown to the crew of Voyager. Their weapons were powered up.
“Brace for impact,” said Janeway in a flat tone of voice, betraying nothing of the fear that was always present in moments like this.
“They are firing,” said Tuvok, his voice as expressionless as his captain’s.
Janeway curled her fingers around the arms of her chair, bracing as she had told her crew to do.
But the expected attack did not come. Instead she watched as, to her shock and bafflement, the lead enemy vessel proceeded to destroy one of its own ships.
“The shields on the seven remaining vessels are down,” said Tuvok.
“What the—” began Harry, who shut up immediately.
“I’m with you, Harry,” said Janeway. “Send this message: We do not wish to fight. There is no need for a suicide mission here. You have nothing we need. We only want to help.” A sudden blinding insight flashed across her mind. “We are coming closer to offer aid.”
“Captain,” said Tuvok, “if we approach the fleet, we are likely to incur damage from the exploding vessels if they continue to destroy themselves.”
“I’m counting on them to realize that too, Tuvok.” She threw him a quick glance. “Trust me on this. Good old-fashioned human intuition.”
“Captain, we’re being hailed,” said Kim.
“On screen.”
An angular, mottled face filled the screen. Despite the deep, sunken eyes, beaklike mouth, and lack of a nose, the face was humanoid enough that Janeway could recognize the signs of deep grief and despair etched on his features.
“Captain Janeway, please leave this area of space. We’ve done enough. We have no desire to harm innocent species any further. Let us destroy ourselves in peace.”
“I’ve no intention of letting you destroy yourselves,” said Janeway, rising and walking down to the screen. She made no attempt to hide her emotions now. “What is it you think you have done that warrants such extreme measures?”
The being looked down, then up again at Janeway. “Several months ago, we killed the populace of an entire solar system. The Katian system. All gone, all dead.”
“Harry,” said Janeway, “I think we passed through that system not too long ago. We’ve certainly been there since they have, and I don’t recall it being devastated. Find it and report the minute you can confirm or deny that statement.” She turned again to the screen. Keep him talking, she thought.
“Were you at war with the inhabitants of the Katian system?”
“We are not a warlike race,” said the alien. “We fight only as a last resort. War is not orderly, and we prize order above all things. These vessels are defensive only, built merely for protection against aggressors. They usually remain in our home system.”
“Then how is it you managed to wipe out an entire solar system?” Janeway pressed.
The alien did not answer. He looked confused. “I—I don’t remember. But they’re dead, all dead!”
“Captain,” said Kim, “You were right. We passed through the Katian system less than two weeks ago. At that time, the six planets of the Katian system were inhabited by billions of sentient life forms. There was no residual evidence of any battles fought there, no trace of pandemics, nothing. Those people were fine when we saw them, and I bet they’re fine now.”
Janeway nodded, her eyes on the alien. “You are filled with despair, aren’t you? Hopelessness, a sense of futility. You see wrongs that you have done and you feel that the only way to … to atone is to kill yourselves. Am I right?”
He blinked solemn eyes that had no whites. In a voice harsh with self-loathing, the alien replied, “You know us well, Captain. Is it so obvious that we are—” He choked for a moment, then continued in a thick voice, “We are abominations, that even an alien can see our obscenity?”
“No,” said Janeway softly, her own voice thick with compassionate pain. “What I see is that your crew and your ships are filled with something called dark matter, and it’s affecting your judgment. The inhabitants of the Katian system exhibit no damage. Your recollection of destroying them all is a false memory. It never happened.”
“No!” He clung to his delusion like a drowning man to a floating log. “No, they’re dead.”
“They’re all right,” Janeway repeated. “We can send you the data.”
“False! We have records, we—”
“Your memories and computer systems cannot be trusted. Think about it—you can’t even remember what you did to decimate an entire system! We have dealt with this crisis ourselves. Our ship was damaged, and so were our minds and bodies. Our scanners indicate that you are carrying a great deal of this matter. We know how—” She paused, then chose the word deliberately, “—how evil this matter is, how it corrupts mind and body. Please, trust us. Let us help you.”
For a moment, hope brightened the strange face. Then he lowered his head. “We are beyond help. We can only hope to rid the galaxy of our corruption. I intend to give the order to destroy every vessel in the fleet, and then I will begin to attack my homeworld. Only when we are utterly destroyed as a race can the universe be free of our … our …” He stopped, obviously unable to find the word to express just how horrible a blight his people were.
Janeway had heard what she needed to know. This being was the one to give the orders. She would begin with him.
“Their shields are still down. Tuvok, drop ours on my command. Kim, lock on to him and beam him directly to sickbay, then terminate communication. Now.”
Tuvok dropped the shields. Kim immediately executed his captain’s order, and Janeway watched as the alien disappeared from his own bridge. His crew jumped up in horror, then the screen was filled with stars and ships. At once, Kim’s station began to sound with a frantic beeping noise.
“Tuvok, you have the bridge. Mr. Kim, don’t answer their hails until I tell you to. I’m betting that they’re not hostile. They want to kill themselves, not us. At least, I hope so.” She headed for the turbolift. It seemed to take forever to get to sickbay, but at last she reached it.
“Captain, what are you doing? Please, I must be allowed to complete this!” The alien was seated on a bed while the Doctor ran a tricorder over him. He looked confused and upset, but didn’t appear to be fighting.
Janeway ignored him. “Any resistance?”
“None,” the Doctor replied. “Would that all my normal patients were so amenable to being told what to do.”
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Ulaahn,” he said, “but—”
“Janeway to engineering.”
“Torres here.”
“Torres, lock on to the alien Ulaahn in sickbay. Dematerialize him and keep his pattern in the transporter buffer.”
Ulaahn opened his mouth to protest. But for the second time in the space of a few minutes, the baffled alien was dissolved into molecules without his consent.
“Khala, you said that you could separate the dark matter from the true matter at this point?”
“Yes,” came Khala’s excited voice.
* * *
“We’re working on it right now,” said Khala, her blue fingers flying over the controls. “I’m instructing the computer to locate and isolate all the dark-matter particles. It seems to be working.”
Torres hovered over her. At another station, Telek and Seven watched the process, their heads bent over the console and almost touching. They all knew that if the computer missed a single particle, or if a single normal molecule was mistakenly culled, their visitor would be dead sooner or later.
“Got it,” said Khala. “Torres, would you check?”
The other three examined her work. “It appears to be complete and accurate,” said Seven.
“All right, Captain,” said Torres. “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. Khala, reassemble Ulaahn in sickbay.” Under her breath, she said to her team, “Cross your fingers.”
Seven frowned. “What purpose would it serve?”
“More than you might imagine,” Torres shot back, and waited to hear from her captain.
* * *
Janeway held her breath as the familiar whine of the transporter filled sickbay. She wondered if it was taking longer than usual, if the image that was manifesting before her eyes would have some terrible flaw.
And then there he was, looking stunned and not a little offended. He straightened and strode up to her. “
How dare you abduct a Kwaisi captain! This is an insult, an outrage!”
She smiled in relief. Good, simple, healthy anger. Gone was the cowering, despairing figure about to assassinate his own people and himself in the mistaken belief that they deserved such treatment.
“But, Ulaahn,” she said mildly, “what does it matter what we do to you? You deserve to die, remember? You were about to annihilate your own species. Shall we beam you back to your vessel and let you continue?”
The black eyes widened. “So I was,” he said, softly. “I was about to—Fate forgive me, I did destroy one of—Captain, how did you effect this cure? What wondrous thing have you done?”
“No wonder,” said Janeway, “just science. But time is crucial here, Captain. You need to speak with your people before it’s too late.”
* * *
“Open a hailing frequency to Ulaahn’s vessel,” said Janeway as she and the alien strode onto the bridge from the turbolift.
“Captain!” exclaimed the paler alien who was clearly Ulaahn’s second-in-command. “You just disappeared. We didn’t know what to think!” His thick lips turned downward. “Though any end would have been fitting, after what we have done.”
“Orric!” snapped Ulaahn. “Listen to me. I am commander of this fleet, and I am about to issue a direct order. No one will disobey it.”
Orric seemed chagrined. “Of course, as ever, I listen, Captain.”
“I have agreed to permit Captain Janeway to transport everyone onto her ship, one by one, and to have full run of our vessels until such time as I deem fit. Is this understood?”
Orric cocked his head. His voice was full of confusion. “Yes, Captain. Understood. Though it will only prolong our eventual and much-desired self-destruction.”
“Never mind that,” said Ulaahn. In the turbolift, he and Janeway had agreed that trying to convince the other Kwaisi that the dark matter was the real threat was a waste of precious time. Obedience was all that was required now, and from what she was gleaning of Kwaisi culture, obedience would be granted. There would be ample opportunity for discussion once the crew members were all returned to their right frame of mind. “You are trained to obey your captain. Obey him now.”
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