by Dave Stern
“Sen did not appreciate their point of view.”
“Not in the least.”
“He had the group outlawed.”
“And Straz…” Poz shook his head. “Terrible thing.”
“Straz?” Reed frowned. “Who’s Straz?”
“Their leader.”
“Former leader.”
“Made the mistake of criticizing Sen before the Trade Assembly. Taken to task in a private meeting with the governor.”
“Now a minor functionary in the Intelligence corps.”
“Very minor.”
“And a strong supporter of the governor’s.”
“Very strong.”
“Word to the wise,” Poz said, leaning closer. “Your captain should watch what he says.”
“Who he says it to.”
“Or he may end up the same way.”
Malcolm nodded. “I’ll take note of that.”
Hoshi fought her way through the crowd surrounding Captain Archer to the Andorians, who were all clustered together, arguing (what else?) among themselves and with every other delegate in speaking distance. All, that is, except Theera, who still stood apart from the others, looking completely detached from the proceedings.
Hoshi took a moment to study her before approaching.
She was tall for an Andorian—one hundred seventy centimeters, at a guess, and lean—sixty kilos at the most. Built like an athlete, Hoshi thought, a runner, except that she stood with a certain stiffness—like someone not really comfortable with her own body. Her skin was a dark, uniform shade of blue. Her hair was clipped short, to the nape of her neck. Her uniform looked brand-new—the dark brown coverall sharply creased, the black sash that ran from her left shoulder down to her waist spotlessly clean and shiny.
There was a scar on the brow ridge just above her left temple—vaguely circular in shape. Hoshi wondered if it was a souvenir of the alien attack. Correction, the Antianna attack. That put her in mind of the signal. Which of the fifty-seven pulses that she hadn’t been able to make heads or tails of Theera had managed to assign meaning to? Why was it a tentative translation? She had a lot of questions. Time to start getting some answers.
She cleared her throat.
“Ensign Sato. You desire something?”
Theera had spoken without turning. Hoshi was too surprised to respond for a second.
“Yes, I—how did you know my name?” she finally managed.
“The ambassador has briefed us on your starship. Your personnel.” Theera did turn to face Hoshi now. From this angle, the scar was practically invisible. “I assume you seek information about the translation.”
“You read my mind,” Hoshi said, offering a small smile.
“I did not.”
Theera’s expression didn’t change.
“No,” Hoshi said quickly. “You read my mind—that’s a saying we have. Humans. It just means that you’re exactly right. That’s what I was thinking.”
“Obviously,” Theera said, and then before Hoshi could respond, continued, “I suggest you speak with the mediators. They have all relevant data.”
“I plan to. But I was hoping that I could talk to you as well. I’m a little confused by what Governor Sen said. Has there been a translation or not?”
“The Mediators can answer that question better than I.”
“But it’s your work they’re building on.”
Theera shifted uncomfortably. “Yes.”
Hoshi waited for her to say more, for further explanation. None was forthcoming.
That was odd.
“Can you tell me at least which of the pulses you were working with?” Hoshi asked. “I’d been looking at the first half-dozen most closely—arbitrarily assigning meanings to some of the smaller forms within each wave, looking for some kind of pattern…”
Theera was shaking her head. “Again—I would suggest talking to the Mediators.”
“You could at least tell me whether or not it was one of the first half-dozen pulses,” Hoshi said, allowing a little of the exasperation she felt to come through in her voice.
“Which of the first half-dozen,” Theera repeated, and at that moment their eyes met, and Hoshi had the most ridiculous sensation that the Andorian didn’t have the slightest idea what she was talking about. Ridiculous, of course. The Andorian clearly must have spent as much time as Hoshi with the signal; how could she not know which pulse she’d been focusing on?
Hoshi pulled out the handheld UT module she was carrying with her. “I have the signal in here,” she said. “If it would help to hear…”
“Human.”
Ambassador Quirsh, standing in the row in front of them, had turned around to face the two of them.
“What are you doing with my translator?”
“I was—”
“Hoping to steal credit for our achievement?”
“No, I…”
“I forbid you to converse with her,” the ambassador—or rather, the legate, though actually, of course, he was the gunnery officer—said, drawing himself up straighter.
Hoshi put the handheld back in her pocket.
“Ambassador Quirsh. We’re all working toward the same goal here,” she said. “We’re all trying to find out the reason for these attacks. To understand what the aliens want. I don’t see how sharing…”
“Humans and Andorians? Working toward the same goal?” Quirsh wagged a fat blue finger in her face. “That is a laughable suggestion. Laughable.” As if to prove his point, Quirsh actually started laughing then.
Some of the other Andorians immediately joined in.
“Ha,” another snorted.
“Ha, ha,” said a third.
Quirsh kept wagging his finger. Hoshi felt the urge to snap it off and hand it back to him.
“May I remind you of events at P’Jem?” she said. “The Vulcan monastery? Weren’t we working toward the same goal then? Making sure the treaty terms between yourselves and the Vulcans were honored?”
Hoshi was referring to one of Enterprise’s earliest missions, when Captain Archer had discovered an illegal Vulcan listening outpost hidden beneath a monastery on the planet P’Jem. The post’s exposure—and the subsequent destruction of it and the Vulcan monastery—had convinced the Andorians (in particular, Commander Shran, their leader) that the humans were not simply Vulcan lackeys, and had been the start of the current rapprochement between the two species.
“P’Jem,” Quirsh snorted. “Your captain has shared with me the fairy-tale version of what happened at P’Jem. Claiming that he was responsible for the exposure of the outpost.”
“That’s exactly what happened.”
“More likely the Vulcans knew our heroic comrades had discovered their secret. More likely they commanded your captain,” here Quirsh jabbed with his finger again, “to pretend to turn against them, to befriend Guardsman Shran in the hopes of worming his way into our confidences.”
“That’s simply not true,” Hoshi said.
Quirsh glared at her. “Are you calling me a liar?”
Yes, Hoshi thought.
“Of course not,” she said, gritting her teeth. “But I’m certain a careful review of the events at the monastery…”
“Everyone getting along all right?”
She felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to see Captain Archer standing alongside her.
“Your subordinate,” Quirsh said, “has insulted me.”
Hoshi glared. “With all due respect, Ambassador, that’s simply not the case. I was merely stating that P’Jem—”
Quirsh threw up his hands. “P’Jem again? Are we never to hear the end of this?”
Archer’s hand tightened ever-so-slightly on Hoshi’s shoulder. “Ambassador, I apologize for any misunderstandings between you and my translator here. The important thing, of course, is not what happened at P’Jem, but what happens here. What we can accomplish if we work together. Building on the efforts of your translator.”
The capt
ain smiled at Theera, who—Hoshi saw—had taken a few steps back from the group. Establishing her boundaries again.
She nodded her head toward Archer, in recognition of the compliment, but said nothing.
“Hmmmff,” Quirsh said, somewhat mollified. “Perhaps you are right. However, we have turned all our data on the Antianna signal over to the Kanthropians. As I believe Technician Theera made clear, you should speak with them.”
He glared at Hoshi, who forced herself to smile in return.
“Of course,” she said. “Forgive any intrusion on my part. I’m simply anxious to complete the translation.”
Quirsh continued to glare, as if he didn’t believe her for a second.
Finally, the Andorian turned and nodded to Archer.
“Good day to you, Captain,” he said, and swept toward the chamber exit, the other Andorians trailing in his wake, Theera among them.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Hoshi turned to the captain. “Sir, I did not insult him. I was just…”
“I know, I know. The man’s an idiot. Soon to be replaced, never fear. But until then…we’d better play nice. This is not the time for any sort of incident.”
“Yes, sir,” Hoshi said, knowing Archer was thinking about the scheduled interspecies peace summit back on Earth, in less than two weeks’ time. The Andorians, the Tellarites, the Vulcans, almost a dozen species in all would be gathering to discuss spheres of influence, trade agreements, self-defense pacts, and the like. It was a project near and dear to the captain’s heart. In fact, Hoshi didn’t think it would be stretching the truth too much to say that the conference wouldn’t be happening without Jonathan Archer’s efforts. So she would be nice to Quirsh.
Even if it killed her.
“Talk to the Kanthropians,” the captain said. “I guess that’s what we’d better plan to do then.”
“Yes, sir. I gather they’re some sort of interspecies mediators. When we get back to Enterprise, I’ll request a meeting with their representatives. See if I can’t…”
Archer was shaking his head. “We’re not going back to the ship tonight.”
“Sir?”
“Change in plans. We’ve been invited to a party.”
“A party?”
“Governor Sen’s reception.”
“But I thought…” She frowned. “Didn’t he say that was for the delegates?”
“And now…us.”
“Why the special treatment?”
“Not quite sure,” Archer said. “Something to think about, though—wouldn’t you say?”
“I would,” she replied, adding it to the list she’d been compiling in her head of things to ponder, just underneath the fifty-seven pulses, the Antianna sensor readings, and Theera’s puzzling behavior.
Ten
The humans had accepted the invitation, Prian reported, and were even now on their way to the guest quarters the governor had provided. Sen signaled his acknowledgment through the implant and, that part of this evening’s plan taken care of, activated the e-stat privacy protocol and directed Roia to disable the systems feed once more, to begin transferring the last of the monies from the consortiums into his private accounts.
While waiting for her to do so, he spun in his chair, and looked out the window at the city beneath him. His gaze went automatically, unconsciously, to the shopping bazaar, the very heart of the Prex, the center of his world for the last century and a half. He would be sorry to leave it; those streets held memories for him, memories of his youth as a vendor for the Dalok silk combine, of the twenty years he’d spent as an arms merchant for the Shandreeki smugglers, of the decade, only recently past, when he’d visited it as a returning hero, the viceroy of Coreida, the avenger of dozens of ambushed cargo ships.
Lately, of course, his visits there had been greeted with much less good cheer—when he’d gone in with a troop of bodyguards, in search of Separatists, or to collect the taxes that had fallen delinquent. Some chided Sen behind his back, he knew, for playing the part of tax collector when he had an entire bureaucracy charged with that task, but the governor felt it important to make a statement, to set an example. If he allowed a merchant within plain sight of his office to mock the Confederacy tariffs, if he did not personally skin such delinquents alive…
Of course, in the end his actions had mattered little. Trading, and the tax receipts it generated, was down five percent this past month. Sen had managed to cover the shortfall by slapping a small surcharge on some sales, and transferring contingency monies from elsewhere in the budget to meet operating expenses, but this was the fourth month in a row revenue had been down, and the trend, his advisors assured him, was going to continue. There was nothing he could do to reverse it.
The Confederacy, they told him, was on the verge of bankruptcy. Sen quickly realized he had a choice to make then, and—just as quickly—had made it.
Roia signaled him; the funds were in his account. The systems feed had been reactivated. Enterprise’s crew had arrived in their quarters and were beginning to use the terminals there to access the public information archives.
Sen tied into their separate uplinks so he could monitor their activities.
He was primarily concerned with Archer—the only one of the four, he saw, whose uplink to the archives was inactive. No matter. He took care of the most important thing first, had the system make note of and tag the captain’s biosigns so that Sen would know his exact whereabouts at all times. That done, he activated the visual monitor, and saw that Archer was simply lying on the bed assigned him. Not sleeping—his eyes were open—but thinking. Contemplating. Sen nodded his silent approval; that was just what he would be doing in Archer’s position. Considering the facts, among which were certain to be puzzlement at his invitation to the reception—his inclusion in the Confederacy’s affairs at such a high level. Archer had to be suspicious. The odds that he would be able to figure out Sen’s true motives, however, were infinitesimal.
The governor switched the monitor to the next room, and smiled.
He was looking at the female. The linguist.
Her uplink was active. She was querying multiple databases within the archives for information on the Mediators, and their work with the Antianna signal. He thought briefly of tying into her connection, coming to her rescue, as it were, with additional information, but reluctantly decided against it. Better not to alert the humans as to just how extensive his surveillance of them was. He would have his chance to talk to the female tonight, at the reception. Perhaps (he allowed himself a small smile of pleasure) even do more than talk.
Roia notified him of an incoming signal, from the Qo’noS convoy. He asked her to wait one moment while he checked in on the other two members of the Enterprise crew. One was, oddly enough, viewing historical records of previous trading activities between the Confederacy and Earth cargo vessels—harmless enough activity, while the other was—
Sen frowned.
The other member of Enterprise’s crew, a slightly built dark-haired man, had somehow managed to access construction blueprints of the guest quarters, and was in fact on the verge of discovering how extensive the security/monitoring systems in that building were.
The governor immediately disabled his access to those blueprints, and after briefly considering (and then deciding against) sending a lethal electric shock back through the uplink to eliminate the little man as a concern altogether, had Roia flag his biosigns as well, so that the restrictions on his access to the system would follow him no matter where he went on Procyron. It was a difficult protocol to initiate, she informed him, one that would occupy a considerable chunk of her remaining processing power. Sen told her to do it anyway, adding that she need maintain the protocol only for the next few hours—until the governor was no longer planetside. That done, he closed the monitoring system, and activated the communications uplink to the Qo’noS convoy, shaking his head as he did so. First Archer, and now the dark-haired man…
These humans, he thought. T
oo clever by half.
The screen before him wavered, cleared, and displayed the image of the convoy’s commander.
“Governor Sen.”
“Commander. Welcome.”
“You are ready?”
“I will be. In approximately five hours.”
“And you have the access codes?”
“I do.”
“And the human?”
“I’ll have him then as well.”
“Excellent.” The commander smiled, displaying a set of stained, yellowing teeth—some of them rather sharp-looking. He looked, the governor thought, not so much happy as…ready to eat.
Sen smiled back. “And you’ll have the currency?”
The commander grunted in the affirmative, managing to look somewhat insulted in the process.
“Five hours,” the commander repeated. There was nothing more to say after that, and rather than chatter on like so many of the Confederacy’s members, the commander simply closed the channel.
Brevity, Sen thought. Very refreshing.
He rose from his seat then, and went to prepare—for the reception, and certain other events set to occur simultaneously.
Hoshi heard Malcolm swear, once, then a second time. Footsteps sounded, coming from his room into hers.
“Damn thing just kicked me off the system.”
She turned away from the monitor. “What?”
“I was…” Reed shook his head. “Never mind. Can I use yours for a second?”
Hoshi shrugged, and got up from her chair. She’d just been going in circles the last few minutes anyway, accessing the same pieces of information over and over again, albeit through different links. Some of it interesting, some of it not. There was very little—almost nothing—on the work the Mediators had done on the alien signal; no surprise there, considering what they’d said regarding the preliminary nature of their work. She had found a treasure trove of information on the Kanthropians themselves. They were, literally, mediators, they spent their time traveling about the galaxy, or this part of the galaxy, anyway, trying to broker peace between warring parties, or find common ground in disputes of all kinds, commercial, territorial, military…A lot of their work involved linguistics as a matter of course. There were multiple references within the system that called them “the most well-trained, gifted translators in the quadrant.” Hoshi looked forward to talking to them—perhaps tonight, if they were at Sen’s reception, certainly tomorrow, if not.
