Rosetta

by Dave Stern

  There was a Vulcan too. A female. Interesting.

  Sen’s eyes lingered on her a moment, then were drawn to one of the humans—a male standing in the center of the bridge. The captain, undoubtedly. Captain Archer.

  He was young, Sen saw. Very, very young. Just like the race. Young, most likely immature, and most certainly at a disadvantage in interactions with any older, more sophisticated species.

  A thin smile crossed the governor’s lips, and then he spoke.

  “Captain Archer, I presume?”

  One thing Travis hadn’t mentioned about Governor Sen.

  The man looked like death warmed over. Actually, “warmed over” was not the right term. The right term was just the one word “death.” Governor Sen looked like death. His face was the face of an Egyptian mummy—wrinkled, shriveled, ancient. And, incongruously enough, smiling.

  Never judge a book by its cover, Archer thought, forcing himself to return Sen’s smile.

  “And you must be Governor Sen. I am Jonathan Archer of Enterprise—and thank you for your warning, sir. Though I’m afraid we may have already encountered one of the ships your messages spoke of.” The captain went on to briefly relate their experiences of the last few days.

  “You’re lucky to have escaped unscathed, Captain. The attacks are often quite deadly. There have been numerous fatalities over the past year.”

  “No idea who they are?”

  “No.”

  “Or the reason for the attacks?”

  “They are clearly attempting to establish territorial boundaries,” Sen said. “The territory in question, however, is largely Thelasian, or has been established by treaty as neutral space.”

  “I see,” Archer said, making a mental note to have T’Pol brief him a little more thoroughly on races with any sort of territorial interest in this sector. Not that he didn’t trust Sen, but given what Travis had told him about the man…

  Well, he didn’t entirely trust Sen.

  “I would appreciate you forwarding on specifics of your encounter with this ship,” Sen said. “We can take your raw sensor data.”

  Archer was about to agree to the governor’s request when he realized that the raw sensor data would not only provide Sen with the information he was asking for, but would also give him a fairly good idea of Enterprise’s sensor capabilities. And the ship’s maneuverability. Their standard defense postures. Maybe he was being paranoid, but that was not information he wanted to share at the moment.

  “We’ll put together a report for you,” the captain said.

  “Thank you.” Sen’s smile remained frozen in place. He seemed genuinely pleased.

  It’d be hell sitting across from this guy at a poker table, Archer thought.

  “As I mentioned in our message, Captain, we are currently planning an offensive against this species, designed to eliminate any future attacks. Representatives from several races in this sector and surrounding ones are meeting on Procyron now to finalize those plans. Meanwhile, I want to assure your species, and any others aboard your ship”—at this Sen’s eyes went briefly to T’Pol—“that the trade routes are open and safe, and will remain open and safe.”

  Archer frowned. “That’s important of course, Governor, and I may be speaking out of turn here, but talk of any sort of major offensive seems a little…premature to me.”

  “How so?”

  “These aliens, whoever they were, were nowhere near as interested in hurting us as they were in defending their territory. They had several…”

  “It is not their territory,” Sen interrupted.

  “Of course. Excuse me. What they perceived as their territory. I was just going to say that they had several chances to damage our ship, and were quite careful not to.”

  “There have been encounters similar to yours,” Sen said. “But there have also been, as I said, other, far more destructive incidents. My belief is that the nature of the encounters are shaped by the individual commanders aboard these ships. Their temperament.”

  “As well as the temperament—and actions—of the vessels they encounter, I would think,” Archer said.

  Sen eyed him suspiciously.

  “You seem to be trying to defend this species, Captain. Is there a reason for that?”

  “No. Not trying to defend. To understand. Which reminds me—we also received a signal from this vessel,” Archer said. “A repeating message we were unable to translate. We’ll include that in our report as well.”

  “It’s undoubtedly the same message sent in previous encounters. We have, as of yet, been unable to translate it either.”

  “It seems to me that should be your first priority, Governor. Establishing communications so that you can determine what it is these aliens want.”

  The smile remained frozen on Sen’s face, but this time something in his eyes changed. Archer decided then that not only would he not want to play poker with the governor, he would not like to have him as an enemy. That something in Sen’s eyes looked to the captain like anger. A great reservoir of anger.

  “Again, forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn,” the captain added.

  “Of course.” The anger in Sen’s eyes was gone as quickly as it had come. The governor regarded him coolly. “You have some interesting views on the proper conduct of interspecies relations, Captain. Let me offer you some advice: In our long experience as a spacefaring civilization, we Thelasians have found that nothing is as important as the safe maintenance of neutral travel corridors. And in this sector of space, the maintenance of those corridors is the duty of the Confederacy. I would ask you to realize too that not every ship is able to defend itself as well as yours. Most vessels lack the variety of armaments you carry—your phase cannons, photonic torpedoes, and the like.”

  It took a great deal of self-control for Archer not to react to that statement.

  How in the world had Sen obtained that kind of detailed information on their weapons systems?

  “Our weapons are a tool of last resort, Governor. Far better to avoid their use altogether, wouldn’t you say? To make communication—not conflict—a priority?”

  “This conflict, I remind you, was not of our initiation. But I admire your ideals, Captain. And your courage in expressing them. Unfortunately, the universe does not deal with idealists kindly. You humans will learn that, I’m certain. Over time.”

  “I hope not. Our ideals are a large part of who we are.”

  “Forgive me if I’ve upset you, Captain. I didn’t mean to—how did you put it—speak out of turn?”

  “I’m not upset. And you’re entitled to your opinions, of course.”

  “Of course. Our differences are what make interspecies relations so often…interesting.” Sen leaned back in his chair. “I’m afraid I have to end our conversation at this point, Captain. I have another appointment. In the interim, I look forward to receiving your report, and, of course, you are welcome on Procyron, should you desire to visit. Sen out.”

  The viewscreen went dark before Archer could reply in kind.

  “Sonuvabitch,” Trip said.

  The captain nodded. “Condescending sonuvabitch.”

  Impertinent twit. Sen hadn’t been this angry since…

  Well, since Roia. And that was, what—seventy years ago now? Eighty?

  The implant sounded.

  Lunch is here. Defense Council awaits your presence.

  “Defense Council will have to wait.” He needed, Sen realized, to calm down. He would eat first. “Apologize again for me. I will be another ten minutes. Have Colonel Yusa start his presentation. Send the transmission to the viewer here.”

  Yes, sir. Response from Teff-Langer Conglomerate on your query re: Captain Archer. Multiple references available.

  Well. That was fast.

  “Show them to me.”

  They are quite expensive to retrieve in full, Roia said, quoting him a price.

  Sen didn’t care. He asked for all of them. The viewer began filling with text. S
en ate as he read. He couldn’t help but be impressed. Again, for a youthful species, for a relatively unsophisticated species, Archer and his ship had managed, somehow, to be in the thick of a great many things. There was more information on their involvement in the Vulcan-Andorian conflict, more on their travels within the so-called Expanse, and with a race known as the Xindi, who Sen had never heard of before. And then some information on Archer alone, courtesy of the Confederacy’s representatives on Qo’noS, which Sen, as he read, recognized as the source of his initial feeling of familiarity on first hearing the captain’s name. He had seen this report before, months before in fact, and taken note of it, due to the not-inconsiderable sums of money mentioned. There had been no possibility of obtaining that money back then, though, so it had not remained uppermost in his consciousness. But now…

  Things with Qo’noS were different. Everything, in fact, was different.

  Sen finished his lunch then, and considered the possibilities as he made his way to the solarium.

  Five

  First shift ended. Second shift began. Archer retreated to his ready room, where he found a number of items on his workstation, awaiting review. First was the report for Sen on Enterprise’s encounter with the alien ship. It was as innocuous as he’d asked for. He made it even more so, removing references to some of Hoshi’s translation efforts, and then forwarded it to Carstairs for transmission.

  Next was a summary from T’Pol of what little information she’d been able to find on the Thelasians. Sen hadn’t lied about one thing: they were an old race. T’Pol had found isolated mentions of them almost as far back as the beginning of recorded galactic history, contemporaneous with the Allied Worlds and the Barreon, and their mutually self-destructive war. She referenced one source that claimed the Confederacy was the legitimate successor to the old Allied Worlds, which caused the captain to raise an eyebrow. No extant civilization had ever claimed any sort of direct linkage with the Allied Worlds, or the Barreon for that matter. Archer called up that source, and read through it for himself. He wasn’t convinced. There was a lack of specificity with regard to dates, a lack of detail with regard to planetary coordinates. Interesting stuff, though. T’Pol had found it in the Vulcan database, but the original source wasn’t named. Could it be Vulcan? Not likely; compared with the Thelasians, even the Vulcans were a relatively young space-faring species. The Confederacy had already been up and running for centuries before Surak was even born.

  There was also a note from T’Pol at the end of the summary, saying that she was in the process of obtaining more current information on the Confederacy: she hoped to have that information to Archer shortly.

  And then there was another transmission from Procyron. From Sen’s office. A more formal invitation to visit the planet, and to attend some sort of conclave taking place there two days from now. A conference regarding the aliens that had attacked Enterprise and so many other ships; a chance to be the first humans to see the great capital of the Thelasian Confederacy, Tura Prex, and for the two of them, Archer and Sen, to continue the conversation they had begun.

  The invitation had an entirely different tone to it than his previous conversation with Sen. Why the sudden spasm of inclusiveness, of interest in humans and himself, Archer wondered. The captain didn’t quite understand it.

  The com sounded.

  “Tucker to Captain Archer.”

  “Archer here. What is it Trip?”

  “You standing me up again?”

  “Standing you up? What…” All at once, he remembered what. “Dinner. Sorry—I forgot.”

  “I figured as much. Just been sitting here, talking about the right way to fry a chicken with Chef. You want to reschedule?”

  “No.” The mention of fried chicken made Archer’s stomach growl. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “I’ll be down in five.”

  “I’ll be here. Out.”

  Archer entered the captain’s mess to find his chief engineer seated in front of a cheese plate. Chef was there too; Archer asked him to fry up a chicken however he thought best, sat, and told Trip about Sen’s invitation.

  “So are we going? Procyron?” Trip asked.

  “Can you see any reason not to?”

  “Beyond the fact that the guy gives me the creeps? No.”

  “Then we’re going.” Archer called up to the bridge, and had Travis lay in a course. “Be a chance, maybe, to get a peek at those sensors of theirs. The ones that let Sen figure out what weapons we had.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Trip said. So had the captain. The second Sen had signed off, that had been the topic of a spirited discussion around the bridge. Consensus had narrowed it down to two distinct possibilities; the first being that the Confederacy’s sensors really were so powerful that they were able to ascertain Enterprise’s weapons complement all the way from Procyron, the second that they’d used remote sensor stations to augment the reach of their equipment. Trip had argued for the latter, making the case that along long-established trade routes such as the Confederacy claimed, it would make sense to have such stations. He and Malcolm had started a sensor sweep to look for such stations as the captain had gone off duty.

  “See,” Trip pointed with a cracker, “how in the world does Sen know we have a phase cannon? We never charged it, we certainly never deployed it—”

  “Like we were talking about—some very powerful sensors.”

  “And some awfully good analysis, to be able to pick out one hunk of metal from all the others surrounding it.”

  “Okay. So…how did he know?”

  “Ah.” Trip sat back with a smile. “I’m thinking somebody just told him.”

  “Somebody told him? All the way out here, somebody told him about us?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. How is that possible?”

  “You read T’Pol’s report, right? These guys have been around forever—the Confederacy. Trading with every race in the galaxy. Trading every commodity under the sun—including information.”

  “Information on us, you mean?”

  “Bingo.”

  Archer frowned. Was that kind of information about Enterprise readily available? His first thought was no; it was a big galaxy, they were one small ship, they were an exploratory vessel, they didn’t fire their weapons all that often. Except when they did—

  The Xindi. The Vulcans. The Andorians.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But think about this: How did they know ask about us in the first place? How did they know we were out here at all?”

  Trip’s face fell, and then, an instant later, brightened again.

  “Okay. That’s where these remote sensor stations—or the powerful long-range ones on Procyron—come in. They got a visual ID on us, and then they did their research. Just like T’Pol did on them.”

  Could be, the captain thought. Except that if Trip was right, they had a lot more databases to draw from. He wondered what other kinds of information might be in them.

  Chef came in with the chicken; conversation stopped for a few minutes as they ate. Before it could resume, the companel sounded.

  “T’Pol to Archer.”

  “Archer here. What is it?”

  “I have additional information on the Thelasians for you.”

  “Trip and I are in the mess. Come on down.”

  “I don’t wish to disturb your dinner.”

  “Don’t worry about that. We’ll be done by the time you get down here.”

  They were indeed done when she entered; done save for a small piece of chicken on Trip’s plate. He stabbed it with his fork and held it out to T’Pol.

  “This is Chef’s recipe. You gotta try it.”

  “It is animal flesh.”

  “Well…yeah.” Trip smiled.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  Archer set his napkin down on the table. “You have something for us?”

  T’Pol gestured to an empty chair opposite Trip, on the other side of the table. “May I…”


  “Of course.”

  T’Pol sat. She clasped her hands together on the table in front of her. “I have just spoken for the second time today with a member of the Vulcan Council. My first conversation with this person was a request for information on the Thelasian Confederacy—a very brief conversation. Our second talk was considerably longer. This person relayed to me the substance of a conversation they had with a third party regarding the Thelasians. Said third party is nominally a member of the Vulcan Cultural Exchange Commission, but in reality…”

  “A spy,” Trip interrupted.

  “Just so.”

  The captain sighed. Spies. Information brokers. Untrustworthy trading partners.

  He longed for a good, old-fashioned first contact.

  “This is highly sensitive information,” T’Pol said. “My source on the Council was reluctant to allow me to share it.”

  Archer nodded. “Of course. I understand that. Go on.”

  T’Pol looked to Trip.

  “Yeah, yeah. Doesn’t leave this room. Speak.”

  She looked from Trip to Archer. “As a functional institution, the Confederacy is dying.”

  “Dying?” The captain sat back in his chair. “That is sensitive information.”

  Trip let out a long, low whistle. “And how. Your source is sure about this?”

  “Yes. The actual disintegration is predicted to begin occurring within a short span of years, though the crisis has been building for several decades. You have read the summary I prepared previously?”

  “Yes.”

  “We both have.”

  “Then you know that the Confederacy—though not a formal political entity—controls both this sector and several surrounding ones through the enforcement of various trade duties and military alliances. However, strategic pressures—technological developments, expansion of other races into the afore mentioned sectors, an overall increase in intragalactic trade—have weakened that control. There have recently been numerous instances of trades taking place without Confederacy sanction. Sen’s selection as governor was apparently a mandate to try and restore order to the process. According to this source, he is widely perceived as a man not averse to the use of force.”