DIPLOMATIC IMPLAUSIBILITY

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Jeremy put his head in his hands. “Right. That’ll work. Suuuuure. Maybe I won’t come to dinner.”

  “After you already accepted the invitation? I do not believe that Mother will forgive such a slight so easily.”

  Almost pleading now, Jeremy asked, “Can’t you make up some excuse?”

  Worf drew himself up to his full height. “A warrior does not lie.”

  Shaking his head, Jeremy laughed. “I suppose I’m doomed no matter what, huh?”

  “A warrior also knows when to bow to the inevitable.”

  “And nothing’s more inevitable than your mother. All right, fine, I’ll tell you all everything over dinner. And to think—you were worried about whether you’ll make a good diplomat.”

  Worf said nothing as he handed the transporter operator a chip with the coordinates of the Rozhenkos’ house.

  He did, however, smile.

  Emperor me’Grmat XIX lay on his cushion and waited for death.

  Death, however, didn’t seem particularly interested in showing up anytime soon.

  He had been born named te’Osbron on the planet that was now called taD. However, when the previous Klingon governor appointed him to the position of emperor, he—like the eighteen emperors before him—took on the name me’Grmat. That was how things were done, even when the world was called al’Hmat and no one had ever heard of Klingons. And it was how things were still done now that the world had been conquered, renamed, and made a part of the Klingon Empire.

  Te’Osbron had lived a long but quiet life as an acolyte, serving the spiritual and medical needs of the people of the he’Vant Mountains. The people liked him, and the Klingon overseers liked him. He was pleasant without being annoying, and he wasn’t afraid to stand up to the Klingons when the situation called for it. The Klingons admired both qualities, and so when me’Grmat XVIII had died after a long illness, te’Osbron was the one the Klingons thought should serve as the new spiritual leader of their people.

  Once, the title of emperor had carried more weight than that, of course. Once, the emperor ruled over all of al’Hmat. The word of me’Grmat was law.

  Whether or not people followed that law was another question entirely, but me’Grmat preferred to think of the days of al’Hmat as a time of peace and joy and prosperity, not as a time of barbarous wars and internecine conflict that left the al’Hmatti easy pickings for the Klingon conquerors two centuries ago.

  One of me’Grmat’s servants—the emperor found he could not remember the young woman’s name—entered, bringing in an antigrav tray containing his morning meal. She set it next to his cushion and said, “May I get Your Eminence anything else?”

  “No, that will be all,” me’Grmat said wearily. He didn’t remember ever seeing this woman before, he realized. That’s probably why I don’t know her name.

  The breakfast was standard: assortments of fish, a raktajino, and pipius claw—the latter being the one Klingon food me’Grmat could stomach. Indeed, he’d grown rather fond of it over the years. That, and Klingon coffee, of course, to which he’d become addicted.

  He took a sip of the raktajino after the servant dashed out on all fours, then quickly spit it back onto the tray. There was something inside the drink, something solid.

  Sitting on the tray amidst the regurgitated raktajino was a small, seamed plastic ball. With a heavy sigh, me’Grmat picked it up and pried it apart at the seams with his claws. To his total lack of surprise, it contained an optical chip.

  The emperor’s first instinct was to throw it away unread. It was almost assuredly another message from re’Trenat or one of his other rebel idiots, imploring him to support their cause and to stop being a “mouthpiece for the Klingon fools.”

  But, me’Grmat thought, re’Trenat went to all the trouble of smuggling it in here. The least I can do is hearwhat he has to say.

  He reached over to the nightstand with his right hind leg and grabbed his reader. The optical chip presently inside it was some paperwork or other that me’Grmat had been putting off doing, so removing it was no onerous task. He put the new chip in with his left hind leg while nibbling on his fish with his forelegs.

  As expected, re’Trenat’s face appeared on the screen. Like most of his silly rebels, he had shaved the fur on one side of his head in the pattern of the glyph for victory. Re’Trenat’s fur was snow-white, so the victory glyph stood out, etched as it was in his obsidian skin. He also, me’Grmat noticed, had taken to wearing some kind of jewelry in his left ear.

  “Good morning, Your Eminence. I hope this messagefinds you well. I am told that a Federation ambassador isarriving within a day or so. It only took four years—though I suspect that attacking Governor Tiral’s satelliteis what really got their attention. But for whatever reason, the Federation has finally decided to heed our criesfor help. Now is your chance, Your Eminence. The nexttime the governor tells you to speak before the people todenounce us, refuse! Or better yet, tell the people thatthey should support us! You wield great power among ourpeople—your support would send a message to the Klingons that we are truly sick of their—”

  Me’Grmat shut the reader off with a derisive snort. Send a message to the Klingons, of course, he thought. That message being, “Time to kill this old fool and appoint a new emperor.”

  Emperor me’Grmat XIX had lived a long, prosperous, happy life. He did not want it to end at the wrong end of a disruptor. Besides, what better way to rebel against the Klingons than to die quietly in one’s bed? It would make any self-respecting Klingon sick to his stomachs.

  That is a philosophical rebellion, of course, me’Grmat thought with a sigh, so someone who leads attacks onmines and satellites probably wouldn’t understand it.

  He was about to reach over and signal for the servant, when she loped back in. “Your Eminence, Governor Tiral wishes to speak with you.”

  “Very well. Please take this raktajino away—it is defective. Have it destroyed in case some other, less understanding person drinks it.”

  “Are you sure, Your Eminence? The galley told me it was an especially fine batch this morning. I think if you drink some more, you’ll find it to be quite a strong brew.”

  Me’Grmat started to say something, then sighed. “I’m too old for these word games. Take it away, and tomorrow, I expect all my food to be free of optical chips, is that understood?”

  “Of course, Your Eminence. I’m sorry the raktajino wasn’t to your liking.”

  Sighing, me’Grmat handed her the mug. If she insists on being oblique, let her, he thought. Klingons were big on surveillance in any case, so she probably needed to be discreet.

  As soon as she left with the raktajino mug, me’Grmat rose from the cushion and sauntered toward his small computer console on all fours. “Screen on.”

  Tiral’s round face appeared on the screen. Behind him, me’Grmat could see the assorted consoles that made up Tiral’s command center on that satellite of his. Some Klingons wandered about, but most of the people me’Grmat saw were al’Hmatti, being ordered around by those selfsame Klingons. Sweat plastered the fur of the al’Hmatti to their skin, a combination of the hard work and the obscenely high temperatures that the Klingons insisted upon. Me’Grmat could not understand how any living being could tolerate such heat for any length of time.

  “Greetings, me’Grmat,” Tiral said. None of the Klingons ever called him Your Eminence. As a rule, Klingons, in the course of general conversation at least, did not lie—part of that code of honor they were so proud of—and no Klingon considered the emperor to be an eminent personage.

  “Greetings, Governor. To what do I owe this honor?”

  “I need you to give a speech to the people this afternoon, me’Grmat. Today is the anniversary of our retakingthis planet, and I think the people need to be reminded ofthat.”

  “Of course, Governor. I’ll be happy to.”

  That was a lie, of course. But then, me’Grmat hadn’t really been happy to do much of anything in years.
/>   Tiral signed off, and several servants came in. They bathed me’Grmat, dried his fur, combed it, placed the necklaces of his office over his head, and fitted him with the imperial tunic. The primary necklace was a string of silver with a Spican flame gem at its center; of the two other necklaces, one was of rubies, the other of kevas. When he had first ascended to the position of emperor, me’Grmat loved the idea of the necklaces, glowing as they did with the light of his office. That was before he’d realized that he had to remain on his hind legs at all times when he wore them. The first Emperor me’Grmat had been female, as were her first five successors. It wasn’t until after the Klingons came that any emperors were male. Unfortunately, male al’Hmatti, unlike females, had wider necks than heads, so unless they stood straight up, the necklaces would fall off.

  These days, me’Grmat viewed them as little more than shining dead weight in any case.

  He looked at himself in the mirror. When did I get old? he wondered. He could not recall when, exactly, the bones in his face started to become so pronounced, nor when his cheeks and forehead got so sunken in, nor when everyone around him suddenly seemed larger, as if he’d shrunk.

  Hissing softly, me’Grmat frightened the servants as they finished grooming him. You got old the same way everyone gets old, fool. Time passed.

  After he was pronounced fit for public consumption, another servant led him to the communications center, where he would tell the al’Hmatti what Tiral wanted them to hear.

  When it was over, me’Grmat found he could not remember precisely what it was he had said. It was probably the same speech he’d given a thousand times before, about how much more prosperous taD had been over the last two hundred years, about what a savage, barbaric people the al’Hmatti were before the Klingons brought them civilization, that sort of thing. The people in the comm center all went on about how inspirational it was, but me’Grmat wondered at their sincerity. He was the emperor, after all—they would hardly tell him his speech was awful. It meant nothing either way. If there were any al’Hmatti who agreed with what he said, they already agreed, and the speech did not matter. As for those al’Hmatti who did not agree—a number that me’Grmat was fairly sure included the majority of the people—one speech would hardly make a difference.

  But he was the emperor. This was what he did. And he would continue to do it until he could draw breath no more.

  After he returned to his chambers, Tiral contacted him, praising him, using words like inspirational and forceful. So the speech must have been a good one.

  The servants removed the necklaces and the tunic and left. Then me’Grmat lay down on his cushion, and waited for death.

  “Are you familiar with the world designated taD, Ambassador?”

  Worf had to resist the urge to turn around and see which ambassador had entered the room. This new title will obviously take some getting used to, he thought.

  He sat in the large, undecorated office belonging to T’Latrek of Vulcan, one of the Federation Council’s ministers for external affairs, and the person to whom Worf reported. She had gone over a variety of administrative trivia with Worf, including several items that had been, for whatever reason, left incomplete by his predecessor. T’Latrek also made the Federation Council’s policies on a variety of subjects clear to Worf.

  Now, she had turned to the final order of business: his first assignment.

  In answer to her question, Worf said, “I believe it is a world the empire conquered several centuries ago.”

  “Two hundred and fourteen years ago, to be precise,” T’Latrek said. “The world is quite inhospitable to Klingons, but is rich in topaline deposits. The natives, the al’Hmatti, were given jeghpu’wI’ status, as is traditional in the Klingon Empire.” T’Latrek pronounced the Klingon word, which roughly translated to conquered people—not quite slaves, but not full citizens of the empire, either—with a mild-but-acceptable accent. “They had lived as such for two hundred and ten years.”

  Worf frowned. He had not known of any change in taD’s status—but then, he hadn’t followed the developments of every conquered world in the empire. “What happened four years ago?”

  “The Klingons invaded Cardassia, and that near-depletion of Klingon Defense Force vessels within the empire proper allowed a rebel faction among the al’Hmatti to succeed in a coup d’état. They immediately applied to the Federation for assistance, as well as possible membership. Since the empire had withdrawn from the Khitomer Accords at that point, the Federation was willing to investigate the matter.”

  T’Latrek handed Worf a padd, then continued. “A preliminary investigation was begun by your predecessor. However, that investigation was cut short when the empire retook the world and also re-allied with the Federation following Cardassia becoming part of the Dominion. Hostilities with the Dominion precluded any further pursuit of the investigation, in any event.”

  Worf glanced at the padd’s display. As the planet’s name indicated—the word literally meant frozen—taD was an icy world. Worf could understand the value of the planet two centuries earlier, when the empire had been in expansionist mode. Topaline was used in atmospheric domes, and for a long time was considered quite rare. Within the last fifty years, though, dozens of worlds had been discovered that were rich in the mineral. Worf wondered why the empire bothered reconquering taD. He set the padd atop a pile of other material that T’Latrek had provided. I will, I suspect, learn the answers to my questions soon enough, he thought.

  “I take it,” he said aloud, “that the end of the war has changed that.”

  “Yes. Technically, the request the al’Hmatti made is legitimate, and the Federation has an obligation to pursue it. That must be balanced against the needs of the Federation’s alliance with the empire, particularly in this time of rebuilding.”

  “The Federation cannot accept a planet that is under Klingon rule as a member,” Worf said bluntly.

  “On the face of it, yes, that is so,” T’Latrek said. “But the retaking of taD has not solved the empire’s problem, either. The rebels continue to flourish. Last week, they attacked Governor Tiral’s satellite base. The Federation Council has received repeated calls for help from the al’Hmatti, and Tiral has requested assistance from the Klingon High Council. The Federation cannot simply ignore the al’Hmatti’s request. Therefore, a solution needs to be found that will satisfy the Federation, the al’Hmatti, and the Klingons. That is your assignment.”

  Worf nodded. “Very well.”

  “One more thing, Ambassador.” T’Latrek folded her hands together and gazed right at Worf. “I am, of course, aware that the head of your House is also the leader of the Klingon High Council. It is quite possible that the relationship will prove useful to you in performing your duties. But it is just as possible that the relationship will cause a conflict of interest. Your record in this regard has led some members of the Federation Council to question your appointment. You have demonstrated a pattern of allowing your loyalty to family to overcome your duty. Those, in fact, represent the only black marks on an otherwise spotless Starfleet record. Should such a conflict happen now, we expect you to resolve it logically and in a way that will not endanger your continued service as a Federation ambassador.”

  “Is that a threat, Minister?” Worf asked.

  T’Latrek raised an eyebrow. “An observation, Ambassador.”

  Worf remembered how his departing the Enterprise without leave in order to claim his vengeance against Duras for K’Ehleyr’s death had warranted a reprimand from Captain Picard—his first since graduating from the Academy. He had resigned from Starfleet in order to aid Gowron in his efforts against Duras’s sisters and repay his debt to Gowron for restoring his House’s honor, a move that had probably delayed his promotion to lieutenant commander. And Captain Sisko had reprimanded him after he chose to rescue his wife Jadzia Dax rather than complete a critical retrieval mission.

  Slowly, Worf said, “While it is true that Chancellor Martok took me int
o his House, my first duty is to the Federation.”

  “I do not doubt that, Ambassador, and there is no need for you to reassure me. Your actions will, I’m sure, do so quite satisfactorily.”

  Worf nodded to T’Latrek. “Of course.” Vulcans, as a rule, did not lie. If T’Latrek had been one of those who objected to Worf’s appointment, she would have said so.

  “You will be escorted to the Klingon border by the Enterprise tomorrow morning at 0800.” T’Latrek looked down at her desk and spoke in a quieter tone: “In fact, Captain Picard personally requested the assignment.”

  Is that a note of disapproval? Worf wondered. There was something in T’Latrek’s voice that he had not heard before. Until now, T’Latrek had spoken with typical Vulcan stoicism, betraying no emotions whatsoever. But then, he supposed that a Vulcan would find so sentimental a gesture distasteful.

  Worf, however, was grateful. Contact with his former comrades on the Enterprise had been sporadic during the war. It would be good to see them all.

  Then he thought back over what T’Latrek had actually said. “To the border?” he asked.

  “Yes. The empire insists that you be taken through Klingon space by a Defense Force vessel, the Gorkon, which will rendezvous with the Enterprise at the border. Apparently its commander, Captain Klag, has taken a personal interest in taD and insisted that he be your escort. Indeed, Klag did not want Federation involvement at all, but the High Council was willing, as long as you were the Federation representative.”

  I suspect Martok’s hand in that, Worf thought. Klag, Worf remembered, was the officer who had wiped out an entire Jem’Hadar regiment on Marcan V.

  T’Latrek continued, “You will be joined on the Enterprise by your personal aide. The rest of your staff is already in place at the embassy on Qo’noS. Their records are available for your review, of course.” She indicated the pile of padds that sat on the desk in front of Worf.

  “Very well,” Worf said with a nod as he rose from T’Latrek’s guest chair, gathering those selfsame padds. “If there is nothing else . . . ?”