It's the end of another delightful day of trying to out-haggle a roomful of Ferengi traders. I'm tired, frustrated, and in great need of a shower. Above all, I'm famished.
As soon as the door closes behind me, I toss my datacase on a nearby chair and pull off my boots. By tugging hard with both hands, I manage to unseal the misaligned closure of the ugly, uncomfortable uniform that weighs down my shoulders and binds my breasts so that I can hardly breathe. Sighing aloud with relief, I loosen my hair and shake it free. The tightly braided coil has given me a headache, but I don't care; nothing and no one can force me to adopt the repulsive jagged crop that's one of the current signs of right thinking back on Romulus. I make straight for the food replicator, shedding clothes and hairpins as I go.
The trade talks I'm engaged in have dragged on far longer than they should have; my delegation has been parked in orbit above this Congeries backwater for nearly three lunations, and there's little chance of our leaving any time soon. The citizens of Ferenginar presumably want to establish a commercial alliance as much as the Romulan Empire does, but one would never know it from either their bargaining behavior or their hospitality. Our midday meal, consumed some ten local hours ago, was as small, unappealing, and difficult to manipulate as our hosts themselves.
Thankfully, the state guesthouse in which I'm billeted is equipped with Federation-manufactured conveniences. The replicator usually serves up decent food, provided that one addresses it in unaccented Standard. "Altair water," I say, enunciating carefully. I speak the language infrequently these days, and don't want to be misunderstood. "Pasta in a cheese sauce. Watercress salad. Coffee." I could have, and probably should have, gone back to the ship with my delegation and enjoyed the mediocre output of our own replicators, but rank does have its privileges. This minor indulgence is little enough compensation for the tedium of a trade mission to Ferenginar.
Following the habit of a lifetime, I settle down to read while I eat. My autoagent has retrieved an article in response to a standing keyword search, and I'm conscious of an irrational feeling of anticipation when the "file waiting" message appears. But the document turns out to be nothing more interesting than a preprint from Hoagland University's Bulletin of Spatial Phenomena. The author, a Tellarite physicist, is concerned mainly with temporal anomalies and their theoretical relationship to transient interphase events. That sorry patch of academic ground has been tilled to the point of exhaustion; the journal's editors have probably depleted their backlog of first-rate articles and settled for anything that will, so to speak, take up space. The author's mention of "interphasic theory as applied to the design of invisibility screens," which awakened my autoagent from its long sleep, is merely an afterthought. The technology means nothing to the Federation; the Treaty of Algeron has stood as evidence of that lack of interest for nearly one hundred years.
The Tellarite's prose is turgid, and to a non-physicist his equations are nearly indecipherable; still, a task once begun must be finished, so I persevere. Eventually I cycle the empty dishes and take my coffee to the chair by the window, determined to make my way through the entire article. But I'm repeatedly distracted by the purple and gold beauty of the alien sunset: perhaps because of Ferenginar's odd atmospheric conditions, it seems to change color more rapidly and dramatically than the sunsets I remember on Romulus. Finally I give up, switch off the reader, and look out at the darkening sky. Unfamiliar moons and stars no longer make me homesick. In a sense, I have no home to sicken for: I haven't been back in-system more than a double handful of times over the last century. I prefer it that way. So does the Empire.
Promising myself that I'll finish the article tomorrow, I set the reader aside. Perhaps an early night isn't a bad idea after all. I've barely formed that thought when my portable terminal begins to emit its discreet pulsing signal. The secure-message light flashes on, which means that an intelligence report is coming through from the ministry--one of many such documents churned out with numbing regularity, sure to contain nothing relevant to whatever assignment I happen to be on. But duty is duty, and reading the report can only hasten sleep.
The terminal hums agreeably as I give it my security code and allow it to perform a retinal scan; it spits out a hard copy without protest. I turn the cover page, thinking to skim the report as quickly as possible. But where the ministry's logo ought to be, the Tal Shiar's emblem is superimposed on lettering that shouts MOST SECRET. And beneath it is the image of a face that is forever present in waking and dreaming memory, a face whose lines and planes and shadows are as familiar as my own reflection, even when they're reproduced in a grainy, blurred likeness that appears to have been remotely scanned and heavily augmented.
Long years of practice have schooled me in controlling my external responses to shocks and provocations of all kinds, and though no one is present to appreciate it I know that my face probably shows little of what I'm feeling. The body, as always, is another story. My heart pounds in my side as if it wants to break through my ribcage, and my stomach twists in a spasm that's partly fear and partly anger. But stronger than any of these sensations is an aching, desperate sense of loss and longing, so sudden and so painful that I nearly cry out.
How is this possible? But I'm not even sure what "this" I'm thinking of. How is it possible that Spock of Vulcan has attracted the direct attention of the Tal Shiar, unless he's somewhere in or near the Empire? How is it possible that, decades later, the mere sight of his face can affect me as strongly as it did the first time I saw him on my flagship? How is it possible that history will not leave me alone, that every lie, every act of treachery and personal betrayal, is going to be disinterred and dissected? For the shiar'rim communicate with no one without a reason, and I dread to think why they've communicated with me.
I force myself to relax the tension in my body. Panicking
will get me nowhere. But I'm not ready to look at that face
again; I turn the page quickly, barely registering the caption
that states his name and title and asserts that "civil
authorities report confirmed sightings in Krocton Segment . . ."
* * *
After I finish reading I sit huddled in the chair, staring out at the night sky, seeing nothing. Eventually I become aware that I'm cold and that my feet are numb. I feed the report to the cycler and go to my bed. The endless night brings no sleep-- just a torrent of memories I thought I'd buried decades ago, and confused, distressing half-dreams of dead enemies and broken worlds.
When the comm signal chimes at dawn, I'm so disoriented that I barely recognize Commander Mirak's voice: "Ambassador, we're ready to transport your delegation. Legate Sandrai asks whether they should join you at the guesthouse or proceed to the conference center."
He's waiting for an answer. "Send them here, please,
Commander," I say. "I'll meet them at the transporter area in the
lobby in ten minutes." I fasten my hair in an untidy knot and
head for the fresher. In ten minutes I will tell my associates
that I've been recalled to Romulus, and that the oh-so-important
trade negotiations will just have to be concluded without me.
A storm cloud lined with silver--or whatever that Standard
saying is . . .
* * *
During the long journey back to the homeworld I'm left to myself. My travel authorization was finalized at lightspeed and a scoutship diverted to collect me. Its commander and crew treat me with wary deference--a sure sign that my orders have come directly from the Tal Shiar, not from the ministry and definitely not from the military: if High Command had posted me to this ship I would be welcomed as a comrade.
There's little to do except think and remember, remember and think: my thoughts run in endless and unproductive circles. Inexplicably, the Standard phrase "butterfly effect" comes over and over to mind--that trenchant description of a principle of chaos theory, in which a single action or event causes unpredictable repercussions far away in space and time.
Even the word "butterfly" brings back memories of the distant past. Like so many Standard words, it baffled me when I first learned the literal meaning of its two components. An insect whose appearance connoted flying butter? Absurd. Mastering the Standard vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, even with the help of the implants provided by my instructors, was one of the most difficult tasks I'd ever attempted. But High Command had been adamant: learn the enemy's language and you learn the enemy's nature.
And when I was suddenly called upon to put my knowledge to a practical test, the intricacies of the lexicon had been an issue almost from the start.
We were not spying, Commander!
Your language has always been most difficult for me, Captain; perhaps you have another word for it.
Soon I found out that there were indeed a number of other words for it, such as "duplicity" and "treachery" and "betrayal." But in the end, through circumstances no one could have predicted, I'd had occasion to learn the language's nuances and idioms and layers of meaning. One might say that I had internalized it . . .
* * *
On that first terrible night, though, there had been no hidden meaning in anything that was said.
In a state of stunned disbelief, I had been escorted from the bridge by the first officer of the Enterprise, whose name I had no wish to speak. Our brief, bitter exchange in the lift had left me shaken: I swung around to face him as we stepped into the corridor, barring his way with my hand. At the moment of contact I felt the rekindling and sudden flaring of shared cognition and sensation, saw the instantaneous spark of response in his eyes, heard a frightening finality in my own words: "It was your choice."
"It was the only choice possible. You would not respect any other."
That was a truth I didn't care to acknowledge, but it seemed that I was the one who had no choice. "It will be our secret," I said evenly, willing every trace of emotion from my voice.
And all at once the psychic link was gone--not broken, not brutally severed, just . . . not there. It had winked out of existence like a distant imploding star, leaving me to stand staring into the implacable face of the enemy.
© 1996, 1999 Kathleen Dailey. All rights reserved.