The message traffic on the intraship net increased as starfall drew closer. I'd been routinely monitoring the public announcement areas, and I'd learned that except for the senior officers, who presumably had days of interrogation ahead of them at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco, the crew would be deposed by notaries at Spacedock and then placed on leave for the duration. Last-minute orders, departure schedules, and forwarding addresses continually cluttered the screen, along with regular news uplinks from Sol system. None of those uplinks mentioned what Ra-ghoratrei had referred to as the Enterprise incident.
A few hours before we docked, I said as much to Elydex.
"And there probably won't be any reports, at least for a while," she answered. "Starfleet has effected a news blackout for security reasons. However, some leaks will appear eventually. Even Starfleet can't hide the Enterprise's homecoming, and whatever cover story they've devised won't hold up forever. Humans simply cannot keep secrets indefinitely."
"As your people found out, I believe." The smile I gave her was genuine; I was becoming unaccountably fond of my advocate.
"You know, the odd thing is that even when our research subjects overcame the blocks we'd placed in their minds and told the truth about what had happened to them, many--maybe even most--of the people they told refused to credit it. That made our fieldwork a good deal easier." A glint of amusement shone in her immense eyes. "I don't think Starfleet can hope for the same result."
"Perhaps not. Counselor--I want to ask you something." The question had been gnawing at me since we'd left Starbase Four.
"Of course."
"Why have they appointed Sarek to chair the inquiry? Ra-ghoratrei said that Ambassador Tilendi herself suggested his name, but that neither he nor the Council president knew why."
"More than 'suggested.' From what I've been told, Tilendi virtually insisted that Sarek head the commission."
"But why? Why not someone from one of the neutral worlds? Someone without such a blatant conflict of interest?"
"Truly, Commander, I don't know. You'll be seeing the ambassador very soon. Perhaps she'll be more forthcoming with you."
"She's a friend of my family, you know. She and my mother were at school together."
"Well, then."
"Yes, but Tilendi is a strong-minded person, and she may or may not tell me her reasons. Her years in the military and diplomatic service have made her very--" I had to search for the Standard term. "Very cagey."
"There was something else you wanted to ask."
"Not fair, Counselor," I laughed. "You aren't supposed to use your esper ability on me."
"Not necessary, Commander." Now she was definitely amused. "Your expressions are easy to read."
I'll have to work on that. "You said that if I wished I might choose another advocate when we reached Earth."
"Correct."
"I would prefer that you continue to act for me."
She bowed her head in acknowledgment. "And I would be honored to do so. But you will have to retain a Romulan co-counsel. Your interests must be protected. More important, they must be seen to be protected. What happens on Earth may well affect what happens later on Romulus."
"Understood." Only too well ... "Tilendi's nephew is an intercessor for the Remish justice ministry. I think he's acted for the imperial diplomatic service on occasion, so perhaps he'll be available. I've known him since we were children. He was an arbitrator even then--he negotiated many settlements between warring factions. And somehow he was always able to coax the truth out of us."
"Then let us hope, Commander, that he has retained those skills over the years."
* * *
Elydex stayed with me for another hour or so, patiently instructing me in the procedural intricacies of Federation tribunals. When she noticed that my eyes were beginning to glaze over, she closed her files.
"Forgive me, Counselor," I said. "It's just that I'm finding it hard to focus on these details. I'm sure you understand."
"Of course. I'll leave you now, Commander. I have to prepare some correspondence, but I'll be back later. Do you want to watch system entry from the observation deck?"
"I don't think so. Perhaps on the monitor."
"Very well. In the meantime, get some rest if you can."
"Counselor ... just one more question. About conflicts of interest."
"Yes?"
"You are a Federation bureaucrat."
"True." Her small smile appeared.
"Yet you are my advocate as well."
"Also true."
"If I were to ask you outright what has happened to the cloaking device, whether Scott is attempting to reverse-engineer it, and whether he has succeeded, would you answer me truthfully?"
She fastened her fingertips lightly on my hand. "The ethics of my profession require that I disclose to you all information relevant to your situation. If I knew the answers to your questions, I would tell you. But the device and everything connected with it has already been classified under the Official Secrets Act. My security clearance doesn't give me access to that level of information. The solicitor-general has prepared the documents necessary to upgrade my clearance, but it will take some time to process them, particularly if Starfleet files an objection." She seemed to shrug without moving her shoulders. "However, you know that I have observed certain things."
"Yes. The science department is--overextended, you said. And McCoy mentioned that other crew members are working double and triple shifts. He implied that tempers were short."
"The doctor is well informed."
"So one might reasonably conclude that the cloaking device is causing some problems. And the crew is overworked because Starfleet is exerting pressure on Kirk to discover the device's secrets, in the hope that his doing so will ..." I couldn't recall the idiom.
"Take the heat off," Elydex said. "That seems logical. Given enough time--"
"I know, Counselor. Anything is possible, even a successful analysis of our cloaking technology."
But if luck was with me, and with Adiv and Lem, enough time was exactly what Starfleet wouldn't be given.
* * *
After Elydex left, I spent some time considering the kind of information she could obtain for me if she could be persuaded to use her telepathic skills in my behalf. But that consideration was pointless, for Reticulans had become as tediously moralistic as Vulcans about such things. And a good thing, too. If she'd started poking around in my head, she might have felt obliged to disclose the desperate defensive strategy secreted there. I wasn't sure how much protection was offered by the Federation's doctrine of privileged communications, and I didn't want to test its limits.
I decided to take Elydex's advice and rest for a while. I hadn't had a full night's sleep since I'd boarded Enterprise. My back and neck ached constantly from the unaccustomed softness of the bed, and from the low-level anxiety and tension that neither exercise nor acts of will could dispel. The sofa was a little more comfortable than the bed, and I'd often spent the night on it. I lay down there now and waited for sleep to come.
* * *
The dream began in the old science museum in Nedali City. As a child I'd spent many hours in that museum, escaping from parents and siblings and schoolwork, losing myself in the arcane exhibits that seemed to carry meanings beyond those described by the prosaic readouts entitled "Centrifugal Force," "Meiosis and Mitosis," and "Stellar Navigation." It was a place of mystery and fantasy, and I revisited it often in my dreams.
In this dream I was standing under the great stained-glass dome that flooded the echoing rotunda with multicolored light. Then all at once I was traveling effortlessly from floor to floor, until I reached a dimly lit area that looked more like a sculpture gallery than a science exhibition hall. Jets of water rose and fell from a central fountain, and wide benches lined the perimeter of the room. I sat down to view the works of art, which appeared to glow with a light of their own. Then before my eyes a hanging paper lantern began to sprout tendrils like those of a climbing vine; an abstract stone carving changed into an aviary roost that housed a flock of white birds; a glass offering-plate became a dish filled with milk and porridge, dinner for a family of small animals. Unreasonably frightened, I turned to the person sitting next to me, who, I now realized, had been watching the metamorphoses just as I had. I couldn't see his face in the shadows, but I knew that he sensed my fear and amazement at what we'd witnessed. He drew me into a sheltering embrace that was inexpressibly tender and comforting: I hid my face against his shoulder, and his arms tightened around me protectively. Reassured, I moved away a little, trying to see whether this source of solace might be Tal, my friend; Darius, my brother; or Tor, my father--for he seemed like all of them--
And when I saw that he was none of them, when I understood that I was staring once again into the face of the enemy, I backed away in terror and rage, reaching blindly for the only weapon I could put my hands on: a deep stone bowl of the kind used on Vulcan. I aimed it at him with every intent to kill, but he moved to one side. The bowl broke into two clean pieces against the marble wall behind him. He fitted the pieces together and held the bowl out to me as if it were a gift, saying, It can be mended ...
I woke from the dream just in time to feel the millisecond of weightlessness and vertigo that told me the ship was dropping out of warp. I sat up, wiping tears and sweat from my face. Spacedock could be minutes or hours away; I still had no clear idea of the approach and entry procedures used by Starfleet vessels. Someone might come to my door at any moment, and I couldn't be seen looking like this, disheveled and tear-stained-- and all because of an idiotic dream. As I stripped off my clothes and stepped into the shower, I tried to brush the remnants of the dream from my conscious mind as I had brushed the tears from my cheeks. But the scalding water couldn't wash away the dream-memory of the exquisite tenderness of Spock's embrace, or of the savage pleasure I'd felt as I hurled the stone bowl at his head.
* * *
Not a very dramatic entry, Elydex had said, and according to the monitor she was right. Sol's outer planets were like a thousand others, ringed with orbital factories, refineries, and power grids. The tracking display at the bottom of the screen showed that the local spacelanes were clogged with traffic; the congestion was probably worse than usual because of the gawkers--freighters, liners, and even a few foolhardy sailships--who hoped to catch a glimpse of Enterprise's flyby. Predictably, given the circumstances, the ship's helmsman performed no maneuvers of greeting or salute beyond the raising of colors. But he was resisting temptation, I knew. I'd been a helm officer myself.
I kept one eye on the screen as I opened the door to admit Elydex. "Hello, Counselor," I said. "The docking approach should take place soon."
"Shall we monitor the ship-to-station commlink, Commander? It's carried on the second channel." She touched a sequence of audio keys, producing a murmur of comm chatter that was punctuated by Kirk's and Uhura's familiar voices as they exchanged information with Spacedock.
I drew my chair closer to the screen. Mars--its day side orange-red against the blackness, its night side sprinkled with strings and clusters of yellow lights that marked its major continents and cities--had already vanished from sight. Moments later, a minuscule blue and white Earth appeared in the distance. It made me cold just to look at it.
Elydex stood behind me; when I was seated we were almost the same height. I caught a faint whiff of her burnt-paper body scent--one of the few signs that Reticulans were true organic beings.
"Sol Three," she said softly. "Such an ordinary world, according to the planetary charts. Well worth passing by on your way to somewhere more interesting. But the world turned out to have resources unknown to the cartographers. And the Terrans themselves ... ah, we thought they were very interesting. And as it turns out, we were right."
"Indeed you were." The planet was rapidly growing larger. As we crossed the terminator, Spacedock came into view--a collection of saucer-shaped modules pierced by a cylindrical core and topped by a communications array that looked like a jeweled crown. "They do seem to be born spacefarers. They've swarmed across twenty sectors like an infestation of taaklits. And they're just as hard to get rid of once they've nested."
"Their great gift is their talent for appropriating and improving upon older races' technologies. And, of course, their boundless curiosity. They use the stars as stepping-stones."
"And very often they step too far into someone else's territory, and appropriate exactly the wrong piece of technology." I turned up the gain on the audio feed. "Let's listen."
Uhura sounded as if she'd just finished laughing at a joke. "Approach Control, this is Enterprise. We're ready to begin docking maneuvers."
"You're cleared, Enterprise."
Kirk, more somber than Uhura: "Lock on, Helm."
Another deep voice--the helm officer's: "Aye, sir. Locked on."
Kirk again: "We're all yours, Spacedock. Take us in."
"Affirmative, Enterprise, we have you. Welcome home." Laughter and applause from the bridge, and then, just before the channel shut down, Kirk's clear order: "Spock, you're with me. Uhura, tell Scotty to stand by, I'm on my way. We've got to"
I swore at the control as I jabbed it, trying in vain to bring back the transmission. "'We've got to' what? Talk? Have a drink? Space the cloaking device?"
Elydex's eyes were black mirrors. "Calm yourself, Commander," she said. "No information is to be had that way. You must rely on other sources."
"Other sources? Except for you, Counselor, those are in short supply at the moment."
"Don't be too sure. I suspect that when Ambassador Tilendi arrives, she'll give you a number of things to think about."
"What does that mean? Are you keeping something from me?"
"No, Commander. You know everything that I know about this whole situation, which isn't much. But one may speculate ..."
"Then speculate aloud, please."
"No. I may be completely wrong. Far safer and better to hear it from an authoritative source."
"And they don't come much more authoritative than Ambassador Tilendi. All right, I'll be patient for another day. But I'm not accustomed to playing guessing games. I want to know what's going on." Hearing an unpleasant echo of Kaslim Dro in my voice, I moderated my tone. "And I very much want to get off this ship."
* * *
My second wish, at least, was granted fairly promptly. I carried nothing with me except the traveling-case Uhura had given me before we docked at Starbase Four. I had never bothered to unpack it. Elydex accompanied me; I was glad of her presence, and not merely because I enjoyed seeing the human security guards made uneasy.
The beamdown to Earth was anticlimactic. Apart from the guards, no one came to see us off. With the air of someone reading a hastily prepared speech, the transporter technician informed us that the captain had been unexpectedly called away from the bridge and would communicate with us as soon as he could. Elydex stared at the technician in what seemed to me to be a friendly way. "Thank you," she said. "You have our coordinates. Energize." His hands began to tremble as he stared back at her, but he managed to operate the faders correctly. Enterprise's transporter room dissolved around us in waves and particles of sparkling light.
* * *
We materialized in a chilly high-ceilinged chamber that was obviously part of a private residence. "Where are we?" I asked Elydex.
"This is the living area of your quarters, Commander."
"An apartment with its own transporter pad. How convenient." How extravagant.
"A private transporter is a useful security measure. Now that we've arrived, of course, the building will be shielded to prevent unauthorized beaming. In or out."
"Counselor, I almost feel as if I were at home." But Elydex didn't notice my little joke; she was already seated at the computer terminal.
"I have to get in touch with my ministry and leave a few other messages," she said. "Why don't you have a look around? The bedroom is through there, I believe. You may as well unpack."
The closet would have accommodated the belongings of an entire diplomatic delegation; my change of underwear and spare jumpsuit occupied part of a corner of the smallest of the many built-in drawers. The bedroom itself was almost as large as the living area. A bed that looked to be two meters wide dominated the room; a vast white duvet and several large pillows were piled on top. One wall contained a holovid screen and speaker assembly suitable for a public theater. The other walls were covered in a pale blue fabric that resembled Delphinian silk.
Shaking my head in wonderment at the humans' shameless self-indulgence, I opened the heavy cream-colored drapes. In this part of the planet's northern hemisphere it was night, and I could see little except vague shadows of trees darkly outlined against the starry sky, and here and there a streetlamp or airway light. Of course it was too much to hope that one of the windows would open--I'd have to be content with the fresh air that came through the ventilation system. At least it wouldn't be the medicinal-smelling recirculated air that one breathed on a starship.
The adjoining bathroom seemed half the size of the bedroom. Mirrored walls showed me a thousand receding images of myself. The enormous sunken tub and the shower enclosure with four separate spray heads suggested that Terrans were in the habit of bathing in groups. Incredulously, I inspected several porcelain fixtures whose purposes I couldn't guess at, in addition to the one or two that were familiar. White towels as big as blankets were folded over a heated bar.
"This is quite unbelievable," I told Elydex when I rejoined her. "Look at this room. With a fireplace like that you could roast an entire hreinn, hornrack and all. And these couches!" I flung myself onto one of them. "Why, the imperial praetor doesn't occupy quarters like these!"
"It is a bit excessive," she agreed. I had the feeling she was enjoying my reaction.
"How can humans live this way? It's like eating a kilo of rich butter."
"Most humans live more modestly. This apartment is meant to be used by outworld ambassadors and other dignitaries."
"People who have an exaggerated idea of their own importance? Well, I don't belong in that category. Why are they putting me here?"
"Because even though the furnishings are in questionable taste, the apartment's security is unbreachable. And that is the Federation's primary concern right now."
There seemed no point in arguing. "All right, Counselor, I'll accept that. I've slept in caves and jails and Klingon scows, so I suppose I can sleep here. Let's find the enviro controls, though. This place is freezing."
* * *
It didn't take long to complete the tour of the apartment. Another room held a conference table equipped with terminals--a convenience, presumably, for those diplomats who wanted to work, or appear to be working, while they enjoyed their lavish surroundings. A formal dining room held a long trestle table, twelve chairs, and a mammoth sideboard filled with place-settings and glassware. The kitchen, unlike the rest of the apartment, was a model of steel-and-ceramic simplicity. A food dispenser nestled discreetly in a small pantry, and the cooler was stocked with sealed containers of fruits, vegetables, and an assortment of prepared dishes. The tap gushed streams of boiling hot and icy cold water, apparently without limit.
Elydex demonstrated the access codes for the dispenser, which was linked to the food-preparation area in the building's basement. "May I get you something, Counselor?" I asked, scanning the menu. "Tea? Something to eat?"
"Thank you, no. I must go now. I've left my commcode in your directory, along with a few others you might want. I'll be at the Reticulan embassy, which is less than a kilometer from here."
"Will I see you tomorrow?"
"Yes. I should like to be with you when Ambassador Tilendi arrives."
* * *
When Elydex had gone, I wandered through the apartment. On a whim, I approached the transporter pad and inspected the console. The enabler wasn't locked down, but my touch produced only an annoying display that read Access denied. For assistance call Security Code SDR 1. "I don't believe I will," I said aloud. The apartment was undoubtedly equipped for surveillance, so why not wake up the realtime auditors? I had nothing better to do.
Because we'd come by transporter, I hadn't really looked at the entrance to the apartment. Now I examined the tall double doors that looked as though they were made of wood. I stood in front of them, waiting for them to open. When they didn't, I turned the brass knob of the right-hand door and pulled, expecting no result. To my surprise, a lock tumbler clicked and the door opened.
Two Federation guards stood in the hallway on either side of the door. "Commander?" said one of them. "Something I can do for you?"
"Tell me--will a security detail attend me at all times?" As if I didn't already know the answer.
"Yes, ma'am. Around the clock. Orders of Captain Rydell."
"Very well. Thank you for the information."
"You're welcome, ma'am. Goodnight."
I shut the door. Rydell--unless I was mistaken, he was the senior security officer who had dismissed the Starfleet guards on Starbase Four. Apparently the Federation was determined to prove that it retained jurisdiction over me. Perhaps the rift between government and military was bigger than I had guessed ... I filed the thought away for future consideration.
* * *
It was far past midnight, local time, and though I wasn't feeling particularly tired I began to prepare for bed. I would need to be at my best when I faced Tilendi. Surprisingly, the bathroom seemed less overwhelming on second viewing. Repressing an urge to turn all four shower heads on at once, I took my second water shower of the day. Not long ago I'd have thought myself lucky to have two in the same year. I suppose one could get used to this ...
Its oversized vulgarity notwithstanding, the bed was comfortable enough, and the drapes and carpeting deadened all sound: I should have slept dreamlessly till morning. But as the long night wore on, I lay staring into the shadowy darkness of the unfamiliar room, listening to my heart beat, and--when I could find no way to suppress the secret, senseless longing to see Spock's face once more, to feel his touch--exploring every variation on the theme of what might have been.
© 1996, 1999 Kathleen Dailey. All rights reserved.