D'Tan is off and running towards the cave's entrance before his parents or anyone else can react.
"I'll go," I tell his mother, who looks as if she's about to fly after him. "Stay here, all of you."
With the disruptor in one hand and the tricorder in the other, I follow D'Tan's echoing footsteps. The first readouts are stable: a Vulcan, a Terran, and an unidentifiable lifeform that can only be Data. The odds are good that no deception awaits me, but my main objective at this moment is to get D'Tan out of harm's way regardless.
When I catch up with him at the last turning before the entrance, I seize his arm, and this time I do use my command voice: "Get back to the chamber, D'Tan! Now!" It works in part; the boy doesn't head for the chamber as ordered, but at least he falls into step behind me. "Hold this," I say, handing him the tricorder. "Tell me if those readouts change." In fact, the tricorder itself will tell me, but D'Tan needs something to distract him from making another break for the cave's entrance.
Twenty meters, fifteen, ten. I can see daylight ahead. I can smell the fresh, warm outside air. I can hear the shuffle of booted feet.
Squinting against the brightness, I set the disruptor for heavy stun and take aim.
"Hold your fire, Ambassador," says a deep voice. "It is I."
"Spock--"
"I regret that I startled you," he says.
I lower the weapon: only Spock could have initiated that particular exchange, knowing that I shared the memory. Alive--
"Spock!" D'Tan cries, and pushes past me to fling himself at Spock, which is no more than I'd like to do.
"Are you all right?" I get the words out in something like my normal voice. "Is anyone injured?"
"We are fine," Data volunteers. "Thank you for asking, Ambassador."
"Everyone's inside," D'Tan announces to Spock. "I'll lead the way!" He's off again, without waiting to see whether the rest of us are following him.
We've all been trained as soldiers, and so we fall automatically into the proper formation for entering a known safe area when an enemy may or may not be at your back. Most vulnerable and valuable first: that means D'Tan, followed by Spock. Ordinary soldiers in the middle, to act as a buffer guard: that means Picard. Strongest troops and greatest firepower at the rear to hold off the enemy: that means Data and me. We enter the main chamber to the accompaniment of D'Tan's excited chatter. "Pardek never saw these caves," he's assuring Picard. "It's safe. They won't find us here."
When I'm certain that everyone is accounted for, I allow myself to relax fractionally. An empty chair waits at the far end of the chamber, and no one notices when I separate myself from the group and sit down. This is Spock's moment and Picard's, and I have no real role in their discussion. Besides, I'm feeling lightheaded and faintly ill with relief.
"What will you do now?" Picard asks, looking from face to face.
"What we've always done," says D'Tan's mother. "Continue to teach. Pass on the ideals to a new generation." She smiles at her son. "Work for the day when new thoughts may be spoken aloud."
"The Federation will welcome that day," says Picard, and there is such conviction in his voice that I'm almost tempted to believe him.
"Captain," says Data, "we will need to reach our transport site within fourteen minutes."
Where has this deadline come from? Is Picard so eager to be done with Romulus? Or has Captain K'vada given him an ultimatum for departure?
And who, exactly, does the word "we" include?
"I wish you well," Picard says to the unificationists. He and Data look in my direction, and I'm just about to stand up and ask for clarification when Spock touches Picard's arm.
They move away from the group; Data follows. The three of them disappear into a small natural alcove across the chamber from where I'm sitting. I'd like to join them, but it's obvious that Spock intends to speak with them privately. It's equally obvious that none of the unificationists is particularly eager to talk to me: they're off in the opposite end of the chamber, probably devising Plan C. Their voices are a soft, droning murmur.
Odd, really, that I and these people--D'Tan's parents, the scholarly-looking young man, the old woman from the maglev tunnel, others whose faces are vaguely familiar--should have Spock and his welfare in common; and yet they're as wary of me as I am of them. And I don't even know their names ...
I lean my head back against the damp cave wall. If I can just rest my eyes for a few seconds, I'll be able to think more clearly, to decide what has to happen next--
"Ambassador?"
Data's voice brings me back to awareness. I sit up straight, blinking, unwilling to believe I could possibly have dozed off while on duty, or something that passes for it.
"I am sorry to disturb you," Data says, glancing at my tricorder. "We are ready to leave. Are you able to initiate site-to-site transport from here?"
"Yes," I answer brusquely, looking past him at Spock and Picard. Despite the events of the last hours, both men seem at ease now--relaxed, in fact, in a way that they haven't been in each other's company. Whatever the topic of their conversation in the alcove, it must have cleared the air between them, for they're plainly in accord now.
A few seconds pass, during which no one moves. Evidently I'm expected to beam them all up to Kruge without even a private goodbye from Spock. In memory, I hear my own voice: Spock's best hope for survival is to board that Klingon ship and break orbit at the earliest opportunity. It seems that I'm about to get just what I asked for. I think of Spock's kitbags, still sitting in his bedroom at my parents' house. His professorial suit of clothes. His sleeping-robe. The holoimage of him and McCoy and Saavik. The votive that burns in the sacrarium--
Feel nothing. Reveal nothing. "You have three of those fourteen minutes left," I say, staring down at my tricorder as if it holds the secrets of the universe. "So we probably shouldn't delay your departure. The readouts show no magnetic fields or other interference around the cave. If you'll just move a little farther away from the group--"
"May I assist you, Ambassador?" Spock's tone is uninflected, unrevealing. Before I can speak a word in reply he's at my side. He turns the tricorder a little so that he can see its display. "Step back, D'Tan," he says. "You don't want to find yourself aboard Captain K'vada's ship uninvited."
What my face may show at this moment I don't know or care.
"Go safely, Ambassador Tayva," Picard says in Romulan. "Thank you for your courtesy and your generosity."
"Captain Picard." Incredibly, my voice sounds close to normal. "Commander Data. Go safely."
Spock lifts his hand in the Vulcan salute. "Live long," he says, "and prosper."
"Peace and long life," Picard replies. He matches Spock's gesture, then nods to me once again. I take that for the ritual-ending signal that it is. "Energize," I order the tricorder, and within the interval of a heartbeat or two it communicates with the Klingon ship and sends Picard and Data on the first leg of their long journey home.
D'Tan's father voices a question I would ask if I could summon the energy to do so: "What do you think he'll tell them?"
"Uncertain," Spock says. "He now knows the degree of opposition we face. He also knows the extent of our own determination. Picard is a fair-minded man. I hope he will make the Federation understand what we are trying to achieve."
"Tell us what happened, Spock!" D'Tan has held himself in check long enough. "Were you in prison? How did you escape? Did you have to use the nerve pinch? Did you--"
"Shh!" says his mother. "There'll be time enough for all that later." She looks at Spock, then at me, and then at Spock again. "It will take a while to assess the damage Pardek's done. The safe house he arranged--you can't stay there, Spock. His betrayal has certainly compromised its security."
Spock meets my gaze for an instant. "The safe house is secure," he says. "For another night, at least."
D'Tan's mother looks skeptical, but doesn't argue. "We'll get you offworld as soon as we can--tomorrow, if possible. The cadres on Remus can shelter you until we regroup. And we'll have to find a new means of communication. Without Pardek, nothing will be as easy as it was."
"The old ways are the best ways," says D'Tan's father.
"The market square? Yes, that will do in the short term, if Spock approves. What time?"
"The third hour," Spock says quickly, as if he's already given the question some thought.
I'm only vaguely following their discussion. Exhaustion is overtaking me, and I pray that Spock will be ready to leave before I disgrace myself by passing out in the middle of the cave.
"Is it all decided, then?" D'Tan's mother asks. The others murmur their assent. "It's been a long and eventful day. Can you transport Spock to the safe house, Ambassador Tayva?" Her request is delivered politely--so politely that it makes me wonder how much she's guessed, or, worse, how much I've revealed.
"Yes, of course." The coordinates are already entered and waiting in the tricorder.
"The market square tomorrow," says D'Tan's father.
"The market square," Spock confirms. He moves a little closer to me. "Ambassador?"
"Energize," I say, not troubling to hide either my weariness or my relief. In the instant before the transporter effect takes us, Spock's fingers brush the back of my hand as lightly as his thought brushes my mind:
Patience, t'hy'la. We'll be home soon.
* * *
We are home.
When you rematerialize after transport, you can smell where you are a fraction of a second before you can see where you are. No one knows why this is so, although the theory is that in most species it has to do with the deep structure of the primitive brain, where the olfactory receptor neurons reside. Regardless, the first breath I draw in is the breath of home--the still, warm air that fills the house because I've left so many windows open; the spiced tea and fruitbread that I abandoned near the console; the wardroom itself, with its faint bouquet of electronics and metallic alloys that always makes me think of starships, my other home.
Home--
"Forcefields?" Spock takes my hand and leads me off the platform. He's shielding now, but I can sense his tension and an underlying emotion I can't identify.
"Already raised," I say. "I programmed the tricorder. Gods of Remus, Spock! Tell me what happened--"
"In a moment." He lets go of my hand. "I have to send a message at once, Aerlyn. It's urgent."
I'm past wondering at anything, even his need to communicate with people we just left ten seconds ago. "Can you use the workstation in your bedroom? I have to send some messages too, but I've got to encrypt them on this terminal."
He nods quickly, and then he's gone.
It takes no more than a minute for me to reconfigure all my command codes and passwords. Whether Picard kept his promise or not I'll know soon enough. But right now I can't get the image of Stilpa's list of names out of my mind. I call up the file, then forward it with an explanatory note to High Command, leaving my name and Venn's intact. Let Fleet Intelligence figure out what all those other people were meant to do on Vulcan after the invasion. It's likely that none of them knew any more than I did about what Stilpa had in mind, and that all of them were conscripted into his service as unwillingly as I was. Except Venn, of course.
Venn. For the sake of our long friendship, he deserves to hear the news of Stilpa's defeat from me directly. Perhaps when he learns what's happened, he'll abandon his quest for vengeance. I enter his commcode, but before I can make the connection the terminal announces the presence of two incoming messages.
First, and at long last, a report from my--or what used to be "my"--delegation on Ferenginar: the miala genome is ours. Several paragraphs detail the delegation's hard bargaining and its achievement of highly favorable terms, but I skim over those and transmit a brief note to D'Mel at the Velvet Mantle, so that he may notify his sister on Remus of the good news.
Second, and at even longer last: an official letter from my immediate superior at the Ministry of Interstellar Affairs--a grand name for a mere sub-department of the Romulan Fleet--authorizing a personal leave to accommodate Stilpa's secondment of my services. Perfect timing, as always.
Now all I have to do is get in touch with Venn, and then wait for Spock to finish whatever task was so urgent that he couldn't spare the time to tell me what's happened--
"Aerlyn," Spock says from the doorway, and at the sound of his voice I turn, stand, move. His arms go around me and I cling to him, torn between elation at his safe return and rage at his recklessness in trusting Pardek despite my warnings: Oh, Spock, thank the gods you weren't harmed--
He's still shielding something, but one clear thought reaches me: We must talk.
"Indeed," I say aloud, giving the word the multiple nuances it deserves.
He pulls away a little so that he can see my face. "First I must ask a favor, beloved. I need your permission to bring someone here."
"Here? To this house?"
"A secure location is necessary."
I know he wouldn't ask such a thing if he didn't think it important. Still, I can't entirely suppress a sigh of frustration. "When?"
"Now."
"Now? By transporter?"
"Yes."
I step out of his embrace. "Go ahead," I say, indicating the console.
Spock's fingers move across the controls so rapidly that I can't even see the coordinates he enters. But I can guess that it's Hadrea who will materialize on the platform; she was the only member of Spock's inner circle not present in the cave. I'm in the process of preparing myself to greet her with courtesy when the contours of our visitor begin to take shape.
Hadrea is neither this broad across the shoulders nor this round across the middle. Nor is her hair this grey. Nor, as far as I know, is she capable of producing this faint stubble of unshaven beard on this all too familiar traitor's face--
It's only by chance that the disruptor is set to stun rather than kill. It's only by chance that the degree of my astonishment is such that it takes me an instant longer to fire than it normally would. Otherwise the atoms that comprise Senator Pardek would now be dispersed into the ether instead of lying in an unlovely but intact heap on the transporter platform.
Spock kneels and touches Pardek's throat, seeking a pulse.
"He's alive," I say with genuine regret. "I didn't act quickly enough. I ought to have known he'd have these transporter coordinates, that he'd come after you--"
"Aerlyn," Spock says without looking up, "lay down your weapon. Now."
He's never spoken to me in anything like his command voice, but I recognize it when I hear it. Nevertheless, I can't obey his order--not when the man who betrayed him to the Tal Shiar is still breathing, still potentially able to carry his bloody task to completion--
"Now!" Spock says, and turns to meet my eyes. "Please," he adds. "Trust me."
Haven't I done that all along? And yet you didn't warn me about this. I give him a small taste of my own command voice: "Only if you tell me everything. Now."
"I will," he says quietly. "But we must help Pardek--"
I look down at the massive mound of clothing and flesh that constitutes Pardek. "You're right. Why should he be allowed to sleep when the rest of us have to go without? I'll get a neurostimulator from the first-aid kit."
© 1999, 2000 Kathleen Dailey. All rights reserved.