The Left Hand of Destiny, Book 2

by J. G. Hertzler

  Never again.

  The memory of her impunity, both back in her cell and then with her ship—what a ridiculous sacrifice that had been—made him want to break something. He slammed the arm of his chair and every head on the bridge jerked up, except, of course, the ones that couldn’t jerk anymore.

  His two pets, both chained to the chair, seemed to understand his frustration and growled sympathetically. These smaller-than-usual Hur’q were not nearly as smart. For example, Morjod knew he could not trust them with weapons, not even knives, or they would damage themselves or each other. Mother had said to treat them like they were children and she had certainly been right about that: the beasts whined and bawled like a couple of infants, but Morjod had to admit even their cries sounded impressive. Sadly, over the past day or two, the pair had started to become listless, which he attributed to the fact that they never ate. Mother would have to make new ones soon. Nothing motivated a crew like his pets!

  Mother had been worried about the older ones. Morjod could sense that before he had left on his hunt. Martok should not have been able to hurt them, let alone kill that pair. The man’s luck was extraordinary. Just the memory of how he had escaped, not once but twice, prompted Morjod to leap up out of his chair and stalk around the bridge. Slipping up behind every man and woman, he hovered over shoulders and in ears, snarling or breathing heavily at every opportunity. Some tried pretending he wasn’t there, while others tried matching him growl for growl, but their weak attempts to stand up to him failed. Morjod had an unparalleled gift for inspiring dread.

  Completing his circuit of the bridge, Morjod stood behind the tactical officer and bored holes into the back of his neck with a stare. Despite the fact that Morjod kept the bridge cold—the Hur’q liked it—the man began to perspire freely and beads of sweat dripped down off his nose onto the sensor displays.

  Then, unexpectedly, the tactical officer seemed to forget Morjod’s presence and fixed his attention on a gravimetric blip.

  “What is it?” Morjod asked, his voice low.

  “Here, Emperor,” the man said, and pointed. Morjod had made certain that everyone on board knew to address him as Emperor. Not Chancellor, nor Captain, but Emperor. His mother had told him it would be all right now. One of the heads under the main monitor had belonged to the first man who had forgotten.

  “I see it,” Morjod snapped. “But what does it mean?”

  “A cloaked ship traveling at high warp recently left this area.”

  “Martok?”

  “No,” the man said, trying not to be too encouraging. “We know roughly the course the chan … I mean, Martok took and it was dissimilar to the one we’re seeing here.”

  “If we know where Martok went, why can we not pursue him?”

  The tactical officer took great and obvious pains not to react overtly. “Because Martok might have changed course after he went to warp, sire. This other ship left the area before Martok and went in an entirely different direction.”

  “How is it we found this mysterious ship, yet not Martok’s?” Morjod was growing frustrated. He did not want to continue this conversation, but felt he would need to be able to explain the situation to his mother.

  “Pure chance, sire. We were scanning on the right frequency and picked up the warp signature.”

  “Do you know which ship it is?”

  “I am running a check.” They waited uncomfortably together for several seconds until an answer flashed up on the officer’s display. “It’s Rotarran,” he announced.

  Rotarran? Martok’s old ship. But why? “A defection?” Morjod asked, but not truly expecting an answer.

  “Perhaps, sire. Or perhaps a mission. There is only one way to know which.” The officer stared up at him in a conspiratorial manner from under shaggy brows. Morjod resolved to have the man killed later. Obviously, this one was too smart by half, but not nearly as smart as he thought he was.

  Not today, though. Keep him alive for now. He has his uses.

  But tomorrow, what would happen after they had found Rotarran?

  There might be six heads under the bridge monitor. Maybe even more.

  * * *

  Martok asked, “I’m dreaming again, aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” the woman said. “Or, more accurately, you’re in a dream space. It’s not exactly the same thing, but for the purposes of this experience, yes, you are dreaming.”

  Though obviously an adult, the woman seated cross-legged before him was probably the tiniest Klingon Martok had ever seen. She gently stirred a small metal pot suspended over a low open fire and, strangely, Martok felt his stomach rumble as he sniffed the rich aromas rising from it. “Sit down,” she said. “You make me nervous hovering up there.”

  Doing as he was bade, Martok slipped down onto a small cushion across from the stew pot. The firelight cast deep shadows on the woman’s face. Though the wrinkles on her face and threads of gray in her hair indicated she was older, her features were strong and her eyes were brightly alert. “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “Yes. Which is strange. I don’t remember ever being hungry in a dream before.”

  “Clearly you are not listening. Your lady told me to expect as much.” She inhaled sharply. “This isn’t a dream. Not exactly. Different rules apply. Hold out your hand.”

  Martok extended his hand, expecting she was going to give him a bowl, but instead she smacked his wrist with the wooden spoon.

  “Ow!” he yelped, and drew back the hand. “That hurt!”

  “And you’ll have a welt there when you wake up, too,” she explained. “Let that be a lesson to you.”

  “What lesson?” Martok asked, sucking on the back of his hand. He tasted some of the broth that had been on the spoon, which was succulent. “Mistrust the offerings of old women?”

  The woman tilted her head back laughing and he found he enjoyed the sound of it. She laughed with her whole body, her chest swelling and heaving, loose white hairs dancing in the firelight. “Actually, that’s a good lesson, but my intention was this: Anywhere you go that you can have pleasant sensations—like the smell of my stew—you can also be hurt.”

  “I will try to remember that,” Martok muttered darkly. “Except, now that I think about it, I seldom recall my dreams.”

  “When the time is right, you will remember,” she said. Reaching around behind her into the shadows, she lifted a small hand-thrown ceramic bowl over the pot and filled it, careful not to let any drop into the fire. “Here, take this.” She looked at him expectantly and for a moment Martok wondered if she wanted his opinion of the food.

  “It smells wonderful,” Martok offered, though he sensed she wasn’t waiting for compliments. Then, unbidden, he remembered something his mother used to say before meals when he was a very young boy. “For the strength of the beasts and the grace of the birds, we give thanks.”

  “For the strength of the tree and the grace of the grain,” the old woman replied in a rote, singsong voice, “we give thanks.” She nodded her head then, indicating Martok should start eating.

  The food met Martok’s expectations: rich, savory, and delicious. He ate the slivers of steaming meat and chunks of vegetables with his fingers, almost scalding himself, then drank the broth in two or three quick gulps. Feeling the heat in his belly, and a surge of new strength, Martok felt contentment slip down over his shoulders like a warm cloak. “Excellent,” he said, handing the bowl back, hoping for more, but the woman only set the bowl aside.

  When she did not speak, Martok took a moment to study his surroundings and, remembering his other encounters in this dream space, was pleased to find that he looked out over a nondescript plain. The glow from the firelight picked out foot-stomped grass, broken twigs, and even the shadow of a small, scrubby bush nearby. The air at his back was comfortably cool and the cook fire pleasantly warm. All in all, Martok felt as contented as he could remember feeling for many days.

  The woman stared at him, not unkindly, for several moment
s, and then, stirring the pot again, asked, “Do you seek answers from me?”

  “I’m not sure,” Martok said. “Let me think.” He pondered her question, settling upon something that bothered him. “In the other visions …”

  “… The ones you don’t remember when you wake up …”

  “Yes…. I usually knew those who I dreamed about.” Remembering Kar-Tela on the ice plain, he corrected himself. “Or sensed who they were, in any case. But I don’t know you. Who are you?”

  The old woman rolled her eyes and laughed again. “How easily they forget,” she said. “You know my legend, but not my true self. I am she who is called Lukara.”

  “Kahless’s wife?”

  “If that’s how history remembers me, so be it, but we were never wed.”

  “But …”

  She must have caught the glimmer of disbelief in Martok’s eye, because she latched on to the “But” and drew it out of him. “But, what?” she asked.

  “But … you’re so …” He struggled for a way to say it.

  “So … what? Small-boned? Minuscule? Diminutive? It’s all right. You can say it.”

  “All right,” Martok said, relieved. “All of those. In the opera, they always play you as being …”

  “Bigger than life,” Lukara finished for him. “Well, I am bigger than life. But I’m short, too. How tall are you?”

  Martok told her and Lukara shrugged. “When they tell your story years from now—assuming you have a story—you’ll be twice the size of normal men. And you’ll have both your eyes back except for when you’re blind, which you will be sometimes because it makes for a good tale. And Sirella, too. Sirella will be the stuff of epics and song.”

  Martok smiled. “Sirella was bigger than life,” he said, and was surprised to discover that speaking of his wife in the past tense did not provoke the dry ache of loneliness he had anticipated. “Where is she now? Do you know?”

  “The afterlife is not your concern. You will explore that place when the time comes,” Lukara said. “When called on, I teach other lessons, but no one tells me what’s happening over there….” She waved generally at the darkness behind her back.

  “What is your role, lady?” Martok asked. “The stew was hearty and filling. And I feel a sense of peace here that I have not felt … well, in my lifetime, but I do not see what value that has given my present circumstances. Is there not something of warriorcraft or strategy that you can teach me?”

  “You are going on to battle your mad paramour and her damaged son with no one beside you but an overgrown Ferengi, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you fail to see the value of a hot meal and a sense of peace?”

  Martok decided that there was no arguing the point and said so.

  “If you had to ask about such a thing, then the Klingons of your day are much different than those of mine,” Lukara said.

  “Perhaps,” Martok said. “I know very little about the Klingons of your day. Only songs and stories.”

  “You are unfortunate, then. Songs and stories are hardly enough since they tend to exaggerate. Doesn’t anyone in your day attempt to learn the truth of the past?”

  This provoked an ironic laugh from Martok. “Only one person that I know of: Gothmara. And she will not stop until she has torn down everything our people have built since your day.”

  “And this tearing down. Is it all such a bad thing?” Lukara shrugged and replaced the lid on the stew pot, then swung the hook it hung upon away from the fire. Martok sensed that their discussion was coming to an end and he must awaken soon. He hoped he would retain the warm feeling in his belly. “If there’s nothing else you wish to know,” the old woman said, “then I have a question for you.”

  “Certainly.”

  “How is Kahless?”

  Martok was taken aback. While he did not have a complex conception of the afterlife, he had assumed that, somehow, the spirit of Kahless would be with Lukara. “I don’t understand,” he said. “You mean he isn’t here?”

  “Do you see him?” she asked, spreading her arms. “He’s in your realm, the world of the living. The last you saw him, anyway. Correct?”

  “Well, yes, but he’s not the real Kahless. He’s a clone.”

  “He’s Kahless,” Lukara said. “As much as anyone is, he’s Kahless. How is he?”

  “He’s … fine,” Martok said. “I suppose. Different now than when I first met him, but fine.”

  “Different how?”

  Reflecting back on his first impressions of the emperor, Martok considered carefully before replying, then answered, “When I first met him, he seemed a great example, a standard bearer for our people.”

  “He is,” Lukara said.

  “What I mean is, he seemed only to be a symbol, an ideal. But the more I see of him, the more he seems something else. He is …” He struggled for the right word. “I knew an alien, Benjamin Sisko…?”

  Lukara closed her eyes and squinted. “I see him in your mind, yes. Because you know him, I know him, too.”

  “More and more, Kahless reminds me of Sisko. One who leads, but not simply because of his warriorcraft or his example.”

  “A seer,” Lukara said.

  “Yes, but more than that, too.”

  “Ah,” Lukara said. “I understand. A katai.”

  Excited by the discussion, Martok felt like his mouth had been about to race ahead of his mind, but had suddenly crashed into a stone wall. “A what?” he asked. “What does that word mean?”

  “Katai?” Lukara asked. “You don’t know what katai means?” Throwing her arms up theatrically, she said, “I mourn for my people. What have you all become if you don’t know what a katai is.”

  “Apparently, my father was one,” Martok said. “Or so Kahless told me, though he didn’t know what it meant either.”

  “Then he has lost knowledge in your realm. He should understand this since he was one himself. Katai—it means ‘firebringer’ in the oldest tongue. In the days before the Hur’q, when we roamed the plains, the katai carried the last ember of the previous night’s fire to the new camp. Over time, the meaning has changed, so now you might say ‘teacher’ or ‘builder.’ Your father was a katai?”

  “So I have been told.”

  “Then he was a great man,” Lukara said with finality.

  “Yes,” Martok said, feeling the veracity of her words in his bones. “He was. Though I may only now be seeing his true nature.”

  “Perhaps this is why you were brought here, then,” the old woman said, then stood.

  Martok rose also, both out of respect and a feeling that he was being dismissed. Though the top of her head barely came to the center of his chest, he felt great power emanating from her, even greater than Sirella’s. “Thank you,” he said, “for the meal. And the talk.”

  Smiling, she opened her arms to him and Martok stepped inside their circle. Patting his back, she said, “You’re welcome, boy. Now go fight your battle. Do well. Make us proud.”

  “‘Us’?” Martok asked, stepping away from her. “Who else…?” But he fell silent, because Lukara was gone. At his feet he found only the almost burnt-out embers of the cook fire and the small bowl from which he had eaten. When he picked up the cup, Martok realized that he had seen it before in another’s hand. Kar-Tela had offered it to him once, not so long ago, in another dream. Had he taken it?

  The last ember died and the world went dark.

  The chancellor slept.

  * * *

  “You’re going to wish you hadn’t come,” Martok said, tapping his finger on the sensor display. “Look here.”

  Leaning forward in the copilot’s seat, Pharh tried to make sense of the blips and swirls on the monitor. “I already wish that,” Pharh said, squirming in his seat. “Why don’t Klingons believe in seat padding?”

  “A warrior does not need comfort. Comfort dulls the senses.”

  “Slumping is the natural condition of Ferengi. It’s o
ur morphology. Besides, I think the real answer is that Klingons just naturally have more … uh, padding.”

  Martok didn’t reply. Awakening only a couple of hours ago after a long nap, he looked more alert and rested than he had since … well, practically since the minute Pharh had met him. Neither had spoken much since that time, both choosing to preserve the quiet respite. Pharh believed Martok might be, in his own way, in mourning, though he had to admit to himself that he didn’t know enough about Klingons to know what that would look like. Mostly, he seemed quiet, even contemplative, but neither angry nor bitter, provoking a mild uneasiness in Pharh. He wasn’t accustomed to seeing Martok this way. Angry and bitter, he had thought, was the man’s natural state.

  “What am I looking at?” he asked, studying the display. “I can’t read the tags.”

  “I’m not surprised—they’re in Klingon battle language. I’d forgotten that you can’t read it.” Indicating three purple blotches, Martok explained that there were three large ships in a stationary orbit over the monastery on Boreth.

  “Klingon?” Pharh asked. “Could Drex have beat us here?”

  “Klingon, yes, but not Drex or Worf or any of the others. Different classes, bigger ships.” His lips formed a thin, narrow line. “Gothmara and Morjod are staking their claim openly now, it seems.” He considered the enemy force for a moment. “We can’t land without their seeing us.”

  “We could just leave,” Pharh explained. “There’s a possibility I bet you haven’t considered.”

  “No,” Martok said as he worked the controls. “I haven’t. Here, look here.” He had shifted the scanners so they were now looking at the surface of the planet below them. “The monastery has been bombarded from orbit. Impact craters here, here, and here.” He pointed at three dark blue circles, then many smaller purple ones. Pharh did not understand what the colors signified, but he had been in business long enough to grasp Martok’s message: Someone had attempted to destroy their ledgers before the auditors arrived.