Quintilian stared—and lowered his head, resigned. “No.” As he stepped back, his shoulders slackened. “The weakness, the medication—it’s not arthritis. Not only.” He looked toward the void. “Getting that first sample for Jadama Rohn—the traps weren’t perfect. I must have gotten too close. I developed aplastic anemia.”
The cold hands. The rouge, to color his skin. It all made sense. “The medications.”
“They help. I’ve imported the best medical minds I can find—they’ve helped stem the tide. But eventually I won’t produce hemoglobin fast enough. That’s why I’ve got to go. And go now.” He looked to her. “You’re really not with me?”
Georgiou shook her head.
He watched her for a moment—and averted his gaze downward. “Okay,” he finally said. “If that’s the way it has to be.” Traps still in his hands, Quintilian looked up and stepped back over to the Emony Oastling. “I was originally welcome inside—and I have served your people for twenty-five years, keeping intruders away.”
“Until today.”
“No matter. I ask you to respect my claim.”
Georgiou crossed her arms. “I told you, the cause is lost. What’s happening outside—”
“Isn’t happening here. I’m still standing.” He gritted his teeth. “Respect my claim!”
For several moments, nothing happened.
Then, from the Oastling: “We recognize your claim, to a point. Those who have entered before may do so again. No others. Ever.”
Quintilian bolted through the blackness—which resolved into the open doorway of the House of the Lost Traveler. He bounded down the staircase, startling the real Dax, who sat on the upper step, as far away from what lay below as possible.
Georgiou quickly followed, passing the Trill. “Come on!”
Dax stood. “What happened? They said only I could go in or out!”
Georgiou had no time to explain what a complicated, strange, and capricious people the Oastlings were. Quintilian had turned his head start into a lead down the spiral staircase.
She hurried to catch up—only to see him lose his footing on the moldy stones near the bottom. He stumbled, rolling in his armor down the final dozen steps. He lost hold of the traps. One bounced away and splashed into the pool; the other was crushed beneath his body as he slammed into the floor.
Georgiou reached the bottom to find Quintilian moaning in pain, on his hands and knees. The trap beneath him, she saw, was bent and broken; so was its owner. He reached in vain for the trap bobbing momentarily in the water—only to see it sink into the murky, cloud-filled liquid.
She stepped to his side, keeping him between her and the pool in case he attacked. But the fight had gone out of him, and the older man seemed in no physical shape to resist anyway.
“Damn knee,” he muttered. “Of all the times…”
The knee, she saw, was just one of his problems now—but she made no motion to tend to his injuries. Nor did he ask her to do so.
Instead, he asked, “Is it… really over? Outside?”
“Yes.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dax arrive at the bottom step. The Trill waited there. “Agamalon will not let you live. And if he doesn’t take you, the Federation will not let you live free.”
“There’s no third way?”
“Not with me.”
“I came close,” he said, trying to stand up. He clutched his side, pawing at bones obviously broken. “No… time for a… second try, I don’t guess.”
“Not in this universe.”
“Forgot to pack a spare one,” he said. He started to laugh—but nearly doubled over. She caught him—and caught the look in his eye.
“How?” she simply asked.
He gritted his teeth. “In this universe… Vespasian said… an emperor should die standing.”
“That one I’ve heard.” Georgiou helped him upright—and brought him into an embrace. But it was not simply that. She unhooked the straps securing his copper breastplate. It clattered to the floor between them.
He gazed at her. “Sorry there was just one night.”
“It was a good night.” She gestured to the left. “Your bath, Your Highness.”
Quintilian smiled—and turned, stepping one shaky foot at a time down the recessed steps that led into the pool. Beneath the surface, the clouds swirled about, and grew angry. He took more steps and stood, surrounded by the swirling mists of the blood devils.
“Something smells sweet,” he said, shivering. “I guess as last words go, those aren’t—”
He vanished into the depths. Georgiou waited—and watched. No creature broke to the surface. Human, or otherwise.
“Wow,” Dax said, mesmerized. After a few moments, she asked, “Was Vespasian a great warrior?”
“Vespasian died of diarrhea,” Georgiou said. “Come on, Guardian. Let’s get out of here.”
50
Starbase 23
“Debriefings, debriefings, debriefings,” Georgiou said. “They’re never as fun as they sound.”
She put her boots up on the admiral’s desk and stretched. The office was a loaner, but that wasn’t why Cornwell didn’t object. The woman was too engrossed in reading reports from the past eight hours of meetings.
In Georgiou’s continuum, after a battle, the victors took the spoils. Then came the scavengers, provided scorched-Terra tactics hadn’t been called for. In the Federation’s realm, triumphs were apparently celebrated by the dispatch of hordes of investigators, sometimes outnumbering those who’d fought, picking over the evidence and trying to reconstruct, millisecond by millisecond, what had happened. All so a completely different legion of eggheads could debate the whys and wherefores until they had completely neutered even the most heroic acts of any hint of accomplishment.
She’d never sought parades as emperor, preferring to achieve what she could while she could, leaving the laurels for later. There would clearly be no parades for this episode, she’d learned. A blood devil from Oast was indeed the source of Farragut’s woes; there was a fair chance it was the one from Jadama Rohn. But the Oastlings had the pool locked down, perhaps forever, and with Troika space opened to trade—the one, immutable deed of Quintilian’s—the Casmarrans and Dromax were able to look elsewhere for food. No one ever needed to approach Oast again, and Section 31 surveillance would ensure no one did.
To make certain of that, the words “blood devil” were never to be said. Starfleet vessels were to be provided no more than the knowledge that the Farragut attack had happened. There was no proof that copper-based beings were immune. That would never be put to the test. The Federation’s scientists thought Quintilian’s researchers were deluded, like ancients wearing copper bracelets to ward off arthritis.
Georgiou found it peculiar that whole bits of history could go redacted in a supposedly open society, but apparently the Federation had done similar things before. Such a strange people.
She looked up after a yawn. “Can we—?”
“Shh,” Cornwell said, eyes locked on the slate. “I’m just up to Casmarra.”
As much as it pained Georgiou to see it happen, control of Quintilian’s industries in the Alien Region on Casmarra fell to S’satah and her son. The Veneti had spread to the winds, many leaving Troika space. Others fell in with P’rou, running a much-reduced trade between Casmarra and the Dromax moons. Georgiou gave up any hope that S’satah could ever evolve into the ferocious and fun pirate friend she’d had in her universe.
The Dromax peace fell apart long before General Agamalon got his forces home from Oast. The Cascade had indeed exploded, the blast punching a hole through the middle of the cataract. Any nearby Dromax who weren’t killed in the explosion were carried away when the lake above poured violently into the ocean.
And while Federation science investigators had found no trace of the temporal anomaly—so much for a doorway home—the Dromax elected to keep acting as though the moon was worth fighting for. Fueled by new recriminations, battles in
the system continued. Georgiou expected that to begin winding down once it became clear that only the officers, and their young, remained to do the fighting.
Her operation, to her eyes, was a success. The blood devils had been found; that no one wanted to risk their containment by studying them further wasn’t her concern. A forbidden zone had been opened, partially, to trade—and a potential threat to interstellar security had been put down.
And still, they nagged her.
“The Federation Security Agency suspects you of double-dealing in this affair,” Cornwell said, putting down the slate at last. “You assaulted Finnegan, their agent, on the Dromax moon.”
“And I wrote on his butt. Don’t forget that part.”
“I tried to tell them that was just the sort of thing you did,” the admiral said. “The double-dealing part, not the butt part.” She blanched. “I don’t know what they do over in your universe.”
“I suppose there’ll be a boring inquest now. More boring than this one, I mean.”
“There would,” she said, referring to a data slate. “But Finnegan came forward and said the two of you were just wrestling, and things got out of hand.” She looked up at Georgiou, incredulous. “Given his record, they believe him.”
“It pays to have one’s idiocies documented.”
Cornwell put the slate down and muttered, “Well, it seems to work in this universe.” She took a deep breath and plowed ahead. “It amazes me to say this, but as far as the Federation is concerned, they have no further reason to object to your working with Section 31.”
“And you have one?”
“I’ve met you.” She put the data slate away. “Don’t assume that because things worked out that you can get away with whatever you want. I know what you are—and I’m pretty sure you went on this mission hoping you could recover what you lost.”
“What a thing to say, Doctor.” Georgiou tut-tutted. “Doubting the sincerity of my journey to self-improvement? You could undermine my personal growth.”
“Uh-huh. If I hear you’re making the slightest bit of trouble, you’ll be on a journey back to my brig.”
“Can I bring my own chef this time?”
“Feet off the desk,” Cornwell said. “I mean, dismissed.”
“I don’t know that I work for you.”
“Just get out of here,” the admiral said, waving with the back of her hand. “Go. Shoo.” She paused. “Be free.”
Georgiou walked out, down a corridor, and into a festive lounge. Several starships could be seen in spacedock through the observation port. Dax was by the window, looking out proudly at one of the smaller ones.
“That’s the Leizu,” Dax said. “I found out that’s the name of an empress.”
Georgiou knew. “The legends—both your world and mine—call her one of the first scientists. She discovered silk.”
“That fits. It’s the shuttle for my research project.”
“You mean the boring one where you run around studying whether walking on other planets causes the fingernails to grow a fraction faster?”
“That’s the one. I’ll take boring.” She gestured to a group of researchers at the other side of the lounge. “Picking up where I left off—but I’ll be assistant lead.”
“You do assist.”
Dax smiled. “Only when you listen.”
Georgiou rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what I’ll do without my self-appointed conscience about.”
“Maybe you should try to go see Michael Burnham,” Dax said. “The way you talked about her, it sounds like she could have a good influence on you.”
“You think I need influencing.”
“You’re acclimating. It doesn’t hurt to have a friend.” Dax looked off to the side—and then back. “So, are we friends?”
“I don’t know,” Georgiou said. “This not-using-people thing is new to me.”
“Good luck with it.” Seeing lounge patrons looking at her, she said, “I’d better go to my team before someone tells them I’m famous. They’ll want backflips or something.”
“Such a difficult life.” Georgiou smiled gently at her—only to call out before she left earshot. “Dax!”
The Trill returned. “What?”
Georgiou drew her close and spoke quietly. “This business of hiding what your people really are—the symbionts.”
Dax’s eyes went wide. “You won’t mention that to—”
“No, I won’t mention it to anyone, especially not Leland. He’d just use it against you, and I don’t want his smug self to have leverage over anyone if I can help it.”
“Thank you.”
“But here’s a piece of advice. If there’s no reason to keep it a secret, come clean. Someone will use it as a weapon against you—someone besides me, that is.”
Dax agreed. “And besides, people don’t like being lied to.”
“I haven’t heard that.” She watched Dax join her companions.
From the bar side of the lounge, familiar laughter. Finnegan approached her with a frothing mug and smiled, displaying his third new front lower incisor of the month. “Fancy a pint, Georgie? I’ll get you one.”
She seized his from him—and drank it completely in seconds while his eyes bulged. “Fair play!” he said, grinning broadly.
“It was me drinking it or you.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand and passed the mug back to him. “Besides, I’ve been in meetings all day.”
“Ah!” He leaned against the window. “I know that feeling.”
“I heard you stuck up for me. Why’d you do it?”
He raised his hands and spoke as a philosopher might. “Well, I figured as your shadow—or your henchman—my job was to stay with you, keeping an eye on you. I was thinking that might be a bit hard to do if you were in Thionoga, and I was out running around with the FSA.”
“Federation Security Agency? Cornwell’s gotten you a regular job.”
“I got it—we’ll see if I can keep it.”
“Well, if you’re ever in trouble with a supervisor, just tell them that in my universe, you clubbed five superiors to death. That ought to shut them up.”
“Not Mary Finnegan’s little boy. He wouldn’t hurt a flea.” He smiled. “Besides, I don’t start right away. They’re giving me a year, first, to serve as pilot for a mission in the name of health research.”
Georgiou followed the direction of Finnegan’s gaze. “What, with Dax?”
“I’ve flown for her before. We seemed to get on.”
“I know where your mind is.” She rolled her eyes. “She doesn’t know you’re alive.”
“What can I say? Some people want impossible things.” He turned over the empty mug in his hand. “For now I’ll settle for getting another drink.” He looked over to Dax. “Maybe I’ll bring a spare.”
She watched as he left—and smiled in spite of herself. The people of this continuum were different from the residents of hers; many, she still thought, were much inferior. But a current of hope ran through this universe, encouraging lightweights to seek responsibility—and giving those with dark pasts a shot at something other than incarceration.
She would never get her revenge on those who had ended her rule over the Terran Empire. The conspirators were dead, disintegrated—with no graves to mark them, and a universe away. But she could avenge herself: her different self. Philippa Georgiou of this universe had fallen. And while she once hadn’t wanted to claim her, to cross one Georgiou was to cross them all. What better way to scream defiance at fate than to live and work in this universe as Philippa Georgiou, the woman death could not stop?
She turned—and saw Leland approach.
“Damn. And I was just starting to feel good.”
“Nice to see you too. I had one more briefing than you did.”
“That’s how you died in my universe, you know. Drank poison and keeled over at the conference table. You just couldn’t take inflicting one more senseless meeting on anyone.”
&nb
sp; “You’ve finally come up with one I can live with.” He shrugged. “Actually, today wasn’t that bad. Because we had audio of Quintilian saying the treaty was kaput before he got to Oast, we were able to argue we weren’t abrogating Troika space when we came to extract you.”
“And you’re going to keep reminding me of it until I offer thanks.”
“No—in fact, I’m here to offer you something.” He waved a data slate in front of her. “Now that you’re no longer under house arrest, we’re off to Qo’noS.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re not dumping me back there?” She looked about. “Granted, the bar’s a lot more exciting—”
“Relax. It’s a mission—should you choose to accept it.” He shrugged. “Sorry, I heard that someplace.” He passed her the data slate.
Klingons. Politics. Compromises. Conniving. She looked up. “Tell me again why this is important?”
“We put L’Rell in charge, but her rule’s shaky. You were right about the bomb trick. We may need to do some maneuvering to stave off a negative result.”
“A negative result. Such a fine phrase for a potential war, killing billions. You’re talking like Control again.”
“Are you ready?” Leland took the slate back. “I figured you’d like this. You’ll be changing the course of history.”
“I’ve changed history before.”
“Your history. This time it’s ours.”
“What’s yours is mine.” She smiled politely. “Shall we begin?”
Georgiou’s adventures on Qo’noS continue in Season Two of Star Trek: Discovery.
Acknowledgments
I took some time away from writing novels after the enormous project that was my Prey trilogy; what drew me back—and back to Star Trek—was the Mirror Universe arc in the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. I considered it one of the finest Trek stories in years, and found the concept of Emperor Georgiou loose in the Prime Universe brilliant, sparking lots of ideas. So when my editor Margaret Clark suggested I could follow up my Enterprise War novel with one covering Georgiou’s adjustment to life without an empire, I jumped at the chance.
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