Star Trek: Brinkmanship (23 page)

“What threat?” said Dygan.

Alizome turned her cold gaze on him. “To attack Outpost V-15 if the blockade there is broken.”

“But that’s not a military base,” Dygan said. “Those people are civilians—”

“You should take that up with your castellan, Glinn Dygan,” Alizome replied.

“I don’t believe you,” Crusher said flatly. Vitig’s hackles rose.

“You’re accusing her of
lying
?”

“Yes,” Crusher said. “I am. I wonder if she’ll deny it. I wonder if she can.”

Alizome merely smiled. Then Crusher’s communicator chirped. Alizome, tightening her grip on Rusht’s arm, drew the old woman away. “You should take that message, Doctor. Better still, you and your allies should leave.”

•   •   •

The time had come. Neta Efheny listened to the soft sounds of sleeping that were coming from the bunk above her, and then, carefully, she eased first one
foot out of the bed and then the other. Overhead, Corazame shifted. Efheny froze, but Corazame did not wake.

Subvocalizing instructions to her bioengineering, Efheny switched on her night vision to make the little room clear to her. She instructed her audio-disruption devices to come on, to mask any sound that she might make leaving the room. Then, carefully, she levered herself up from the bed. Movement was what would give her away. Fortunately Corazame, who had been in a state of high excitement since their meeting with Inzegil, seemed to have worn herself out recounting the tale to their fellow travelers, and she was fast asleep.

Efheny slipped across the room and out into the narrow corridor that ran between the Ata cabins. There was nobody in sight. She stole along the corridor toward the door that led out onto the deck. Shivering from the night chill, she hurried across to the bench where, for the past few skyturns, she had been concealing supplies. A small amount of food. A knife. A medkit. Everything else she carried with her. The map to lead her to the location was part of her visual display. The beacon built into her bioengineering would automatically send the signal for her pickup and would switch on shortly before she was due to be transported out.

Really, her superiors had thought of everything. All Efheny had to do was walk up into the hills and sit at the pickup location until her transport arrived. Once her extraction was complete, they would remove
the small data recorder embedded above her left eye and take the data away to analyze. She would be given back her old body and her old life.

Efheny shivered again and quickly stashed her gear, then looked out from the boat. The previous evening they had come out of the winding passages between the coral caverns and docked against the small island that marked the midpoint of their voyage. Tomorrow, the boat would turn around and return to the city, taking its passengers back to their functions. But it would leave without Efheny on board. She was making her way inland, up into the hills. Her priority now was to put as much distance between her and the boat as she possibly could before she was missed.

An access ladder ran down one side of the boat. Efheny climbed down this and then—slowly, carefully—stretched out one leg so that her foot was touching the shore. For a moment, she hung in unsteady limbo, then she gathered her nerves together and made the jump ashore.

She landed with a thump and rolled flat onto the ground. Her breath came short and rapid. She listened hard but could hear nothing other than the gentle lap of the water, the creak of the old boat. After a few minutes like this, she was satisfied that nobody had heard her leave.

Time to go. Efheny stood up and looked ahead. Her superiors had chosen her exit point wisely: a few paces in front of her, a small wood of
keteki
trees would provide good cover for the first stage of her walk
inland. She oriented herself with the pointer on her visual display and moved quickly and silently toward the trees. They were well spaced,
keteki
trees of this height needing room and moisture, allowing her to make good progress. Soon the boat was far behind her.

As she walked, and the adrenaline rush that had brought her this far began to fade, she reflected upon how easily she had slipped back into her role as an operative. How quickly the training kicked in, almost as if it was instinct, something you were born to. Even after so long undercover, you never forgot it, not really. It was etched into you—they made sure of that—like deep scores across your psyche. And yet the work itself . . . Efheny suppressed a sudden surge of laughter. It was like her cover job. Long hours of tedium followed by moments of gut-wrenching terror and high anxiety, when you thought you were about to be exposed, or when Karenzen Ter Ata-D was yelling your name. Thought of Karenzen made her think of Corazame, and Efheny felt a rare stab of guilt that, in arranging for Hertome’s reconditioning, she had condemned Corazame to Karenzen’s care. Poor Cory was in for a miserable time.

But that was not Efheny’s problem, not any longer, and she could not afford to let her mind stray back to the life she had been leading until recently. She turned her attention instead to her immediate task of getting as far as she could before morning. Cory was an early riser, and Efheny reckoned she had no more than a quarter skyturn before she was missed. So she set a
good pace, and she did not let her mind drift back to everything she was leaving behind. She focused instead on her surroundings: the tall trees with their purplish bark and silvery leaves, the ever more distant whisper of the lagoon, the occasional bark of a night animal on the hunt. She listened for any sound that her absence had been noted, any alarm or hue and cry from the water’s edge. Nothing came, but the fact that she was listening was what counted. It meant that, within the space of about an hour, Neta Efheny knew without a doubt that she was being followed, that she too was being hunted.

•   •   •

“Commander Alden remains on board the
Aventine,
”
said Picard.
“Has Admiral Akaar made his opinion on this known yet?”

“With respect to the admiral, if he wanted Alden handed over to the Tzenkethi, he needed to issue some instructions to that effect.” Dax ran her hand through her hair. The conspicuous lack of orders about Alden’s fate prior to the departure of the
Aventine
from Outpost V-4 troubled her, adding substance to her fears that Starfleet Intelligence might have been behind the attempted bombing of the base.

“What do you intend to do with him?”

“For now, he’s confined to the brig. But I guess I’ll be handing him over to Starfleet Command, as soon as—”

Picard gave a wry smile.
“As soon as all this is over, do you mean? That could be some time, Dax.”

“Then he’d better get comfortable,” she said bitterly. Wearily she contemplated the paperwork piling up on her desk: new shift rosters, crew rotations, all the necessary rearrangement to put the ship back on high alert. This was just the lull before the storm. “What happened? What went wrong?”

“On Venette? Simple enough. The Cardassians came spoiling for a fight, and the Tzenkethi were willing to give it to them.”

“But you’ve been in situations like this before. Why has this one spiraled so badly out of control? Surely nobody really
wants
a war? Not now, not after so much death . . .”

“One would hope not.”

“So why were people so ready to let it happen? Where were all the good guys when we needed them?”

“The best lacked all conviction,”
suggested Picard.

“Yes, yes, and the worst were full of passionate intensity. But that’s not true, is it? I don’t lack conviction. And neither do you. What I lack is any real sense of who my allies are, and I don’t mean people with whom my government has signed an agreement. I don’t even necessarily mean people wearing the same uniform. Look at Peter Alden!”

“Who do you mean, then?”

“I mean . . . people who share the same values as us. People who are prepared to risk trusting each other. People who greet strangers with an open mind and an open hand, hoping for friendship. People who, when faced with something new, something different, are
curious rather than mistrustful. I remember when . . .” Dax trailed off.

“We’ll get there again,”
Picard said.

“Will we? Rushing from crisis to crisis, we’re changing. And what will we become? Will there be any room for those of us who want to understand other civilizations? Am I overreacting?”

Picard sighed deeply.
“Do I think we are losing sight of one of our primary purposes? Yes, I do. But what else is there to be done? A child . . .”
He frowned, and she wondered if he was thinking of his own son now.
“A child needs security in order to be able to explore in safety.”

“There’s only one problem with that analogy.”

“Yes?”

“We’re not children.”

“So we fondly imagine.”
He smiled.
“Get some sleep, Dax. We’ll speak again tomorrow in person.”

They cut the comm, but Dax remained at her desk for a little while longer and ran through the events of the past week, trying to see the steps that had led them here. What was it they said about the road to hell?

•   •   •

Velentur Island was remote, and the pier stuck out some way into the open water of the lagoon, so Inzegil went up to meet her colleagues from the city, while Artamer went to get Hertome. Inzegil was no more comfortable outside than most Tzenkethi, but her desire to perform her function effectively generally overrode this.

The enforcer air car lowered itself almost soundlessly
onto the water, slipping into position next to the pier. The Atas were temporarily confined to their decks on the other side of the boat and would not hear or be troubled by Hertome’s removal. Seeing the familiar face of her colleagues Getiger and Zedenzik, Inzegil waved. They raised their hands in greeting in their turn.

“Arty shivering downstairs, is he?” Zedenzik said, once they were aboard.

“Performing his function to the best of his capabilities,” Inzegil said, mock-virtuously. Her colleagues laughed.

“So we have an Ata-C who thinks too much of himself,” said Getiger. “What about the Rets? Are we taking them too?”

Inzegil shook her head. “I think they’ve learned their lesson.”

Getiger whistled. “Hope you didn’t come on too strong with them, Inz. We want them still functional.”

“Let’s say they’re unlikely to forget the encounter, which I think is all to the good. Artamer and I are going to travel back with them and make sure they return safely to their tasks. Has the Department of the Outside reopened yet?”

“As closed as an A-bulletin,” Getiger said. “Whatever’s happening up there, these ones might get a few more days’ restoration out of it yet.”

“I’m sure we can arrange redeployment for them,” Inzegil said thoughtfully. “Too much restoration time can make Atas fretful and unsettled. It’s not good for them. I’ll get onto it once we’re under way. Some new
tenements are about to open near mine, and the building work’s nearing completion. The place is a mess. A few freshly restored maintenance units would come in useful.”

“You’re a tough one, Inzy,” Zedenzik said with a smile.

“It’s in their best interests,” she said. “And it would be irresponsible of us to give them the opportunity to be unhappy.”

Zedenzik nodded around the boat. “Are you really planning to travel all the way back on this thing?” His skin glittered. “Poor Art. What’s he done to deserve you?”

“He’s honored to perform his function to the best of his capabilities,” Inzegil said, getting another laugh. She checked the time. “Where is he? It shouldn’t take this long to bring an Ata-C up from his cabin.”

She turned back to the boat and was met by one of the Ata-EE servers, who gestured to her that she was wanted down below by the other Ap-Rej. Leaving her colleagues, Inzegil went quickly down to the Ata section. Artamer was standing by Hertome’s cabin, a grim expression on his face. Inzegil knew what she would see before she looked.

Hertome Ter Ata-C’s cabin was empty.

“He’s gone,” said Artamer tersely. “Don’t know when and don’t know how. That door was sealed tight.”

“Have you checked on the Rets?”

“Sent a server. Didn’t want to go marching in there.”

Inzegil nodded her agreement with his decision.
This case had caused enough disruption to this voyage already. Now that there had been a serious new development, it was imperative that none of the Atas got wind of it.

The server soon returned. With the quick hand signals that her kind were trained to offer their superiors (efficiency being more important from them than obeisance, which was taken for granted), she reported that Corazame and Mayazan were not to be found in their cabin, or anywhere in the Ata section, or anywhere beyond. Inzegil’s heart sank. This was exactly what she feared might happen: that Hertome would run away and take the Rets with him. But whether they had gone willingly, or whether Hertome had forced them, Inzegil did not yet know.

•   •   •

Nan Bacco checked the mirror. She looked sharp, despite forty hours without sleep, thanks to an ocean of coffee, a cold shower, and a stylist-on-call. She needed to be sharp. Sharp as a scalpel. The Cardassian Ambassador to the United Federation of Planets was about to pay her a call.

The door swung open. Garak entered, polished as a much-used weapon. At Bacco’s signal, he took the seat opposite. “Well, Madame President,” he said, with a smile. “The best laid schemes of mice and men—and allies—gang aft agley.”

Garak’s knowledge of human literature would put a professor to shame. Usually Bacco enjoyed batting epigrams his way, but she wasn’t in the mood for literary
banter this morning. Instead, she got down to business. “Don’t make me order Starfleet to fire on your ships, Ambassador.”

Garak’s smile broadened. “You won’t do that.”

“You want to bet?”

“You need us as much as we need you.”

“I’ll send ships to defend that base—”