Star Trek: The Original Series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages (93 page)

Now,
she thought as she made her way casually back to her suite,
the matter is in the Elements’ domain. Let Them speed the message to where it needs to be…

She had barely made it inside and shut the door before a dreadful noise erupted in her suite, and as far as she could tell, everywhere in the ship. Her first horrified thought was that she was already betrayed, that someone had scanned that bottle preparatory to beaming it out. Ffairrl came immediately out of his little galley-room, where he had been preparing breakfast.

“What in the worlds
is
that?” Arrhae said, not having to work very hard to sound frightened.

“Security alert,” Ffairrl said. “The level just below battle stations.” He looked pale.

And then the terminal on the desk in her office started chiming urgently for attention.

Arrhae swallowed once, then went in and touched it awake. “I-Khellian,” she said.

“Deihu—” The face looking at her from the screen was one she did not know, a young man with light hair, but the uniform was intelligence green-sashed black.
“Are you all right? Is everything well there?”

“Yes, everything is fine, except for that dreadful noise,” Arrhae said. “What’s amiss?”

“Someone has shot the Praetor Gurrhim tr’Siedhri,”
the young officer said.
“We are checking on everyone in the delegation while the ship is searched for the perpetrator and the weapon. Please stay in your quarters until the search is complete,
deihu,
and assist the search party when they arrive.”

“Of course. But the Praetor, is he…”

“Living still. He is in the infirmary. But his injuries are severe, and the surgeons are uncertain whether they can save him…”

“Thank you,” Arrhae said, and touched the connection off.

She looked up and saw Ffairrl looking in the office door at her. Her mind was in turmoil. “You heard that?” she said.

“I could not help it, noble
deihu.
”

“Terrible,” she said. “Terrible…” She walked out into the main room again, while one thought burned hot in her brain:
Whoever tried to kill him will find it all too easy to finish the job in the infirmary—assuming the surgeons themselves are not even now being told to do so, by action or inaction. Either way, he will not survive if he remains aboard
Gorget.

She poured herself a cup of herbdraft from the sideboard. “My appetite will be worth nothing until this searching is over,” she said. “This will suffice me for now. Meanwhile, Ffairrl, will you do something for me?”

“Certainly, noble
deihu.
”

“I am minded to accept young tr’AAnikh’s apology now,” she said. “He has shown himself contrite enough that I can afford to be gracious about his lapse. You know where his quarters are?”

“I can find them,
deihu.
”

“Go do so, then, and tell him he may wait on me without delay as soon as he has completed the other errand I gave him. Say just that to him.”

Ffairrl bowed. “I will deliver your message exactly so,
deihu.
” He made for the door.

“Oh, and Ffairrl—” He paused. She smiled very slightly, with a conspiratorial look. “When he arrives, I will wish to be private with him for an hour or so. See to it.”

“But, lady, if the searchers come while—”

“Certainly nothing is going to happen until they have left,” Arrhae said, sounding scornful. “On
that
you may depend. Now go.”

He went.

Arrhae glanced at the cupboard. The little cloaking sphere lay in a bottom drawer, under a pile of bodysilks.
Where can I possibly hide it so they will not find it? If they
—

The door signal went off.

She got up and went to answer it. The door slid open to reveal six people, three men and two women in the gray-on-black of ship’s security, and one in intel black and green, all bearing various kinds of scanning equipment. “Noble
deihu,
” the intel officer said, “we beg your pardon, but we—”

“Yes, yes, come in and get it over with,” Arrhae said, “so that I can get back to my firstmeal before it grows cold.”

They filed in and walked around the room, which soon filled with the hum and buzz of their scan equipment. Arrhae sat down and drank her draft and pointedly ignored them all, fighting not to look as nervous as she felt, while they went into Ffairrl’s little galley, all over her suite and into her bathroom, scanning every piece of furniture in the place, and every drawer and cupboard. But the moment she was dreading, the sound of one of their scanners going off as it discovered something suspicious, never came. Finally one of them opened the clothespress and started scanning in there, and when he was finished, even started opening the drawers.

Now or never.
Arrhae looked over at him, the last one left looking for anything; the rest were gathered together in the middle of the room, comparing readings, plainly having had only negative results. In a voice dripping with lazy scorn, Arrhae said, “If with all your high-priced machinery you have found nothing, I think you may safely leave off pawing through a Senator’s intimates, fellow. Unless you and your comrades prefer to find yourselves pawing through something far less attractive, on your account, when we get back home…”

The security man, who had been about to open that last drawer, started straight up as if shocked. “Close that up straightway,” the intelligence officer said, irritated, “and come along.
Deihu,
a thousand pardons for troubling your morning.”

And out they went.

Arrhae sat right where she was for a few seconds, trying to find her composure again.
It not only kept poor Gurrhim from being detected,
she thought,
but it has protected itself from detection as well.

The small relief did nothing to assuage her greater concern.
Well. If this does not qualify as a great need…
For something in her was saying,
Keep that man alive. Whatever you do, keep him alive!

Arrhae got up, waved the door locked, and went to get the sphere. For the next little while she sat in the bathroom with the door closed, hurriedly speed-reading her way through the holographic projection it produced of its documentation. And by the time the door signal went again, she was ready.

She stuffed the sphere into her breeches pocket and went to answer the door. Tr’AAnikh was standing there, looking somewhat apprehensive.

“Deihu…”
he said.

“Come in,” Arrhae said. “And sit down. We must have a talk…”

The building in which the Senate kept its administrative offices was only across the Avenue of Processions from the great domed building itself, but even so close, no whisper of the noise of reconstruction came through the plasteel of the window that made up one whole wall. Everything was silent in the small, bare retiring room where the three men now stood. It looked as if it should have echoed, for there was not so much as a stick of furniture in it, and the floor and walls were bare. But every word spoken sounded almost painfully anechoic due to the damping devices in operation. No force known to Rihannsu science could see or hear what was happening in that room…which was the way the three men wanted it.

“We should at least get it back.”

“There’s no
point
in it now, Arhm’n! It’s a liability. Trying to save it will only multiply the chances that she’ll somehow escape alive. And we cannot permit that now. We have to kill her immediately, while we have the chance.”

“I’m not saying
that’s
a bad idea. You know how I feel, Urellh! But the Sword—”

“It no longer
matters.
There’s far worse to deal with now. If we’re concerned about keeping our people in line, well, the Klingons will be giving us more than enough fuel for that fire momentarily. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise; nothing unifies a people like a good war, eh? But whatever happens, if we are not to have Artaleirh,
they
certainly cannot be permitted to have it. The place is going to be destroyed anyway; it makes little odds which of us does it now. No news will come from there to ch’Rihan and ch’Havran that we don’t permit to come…and after the fact, we can present that news any way we like. But there’s time to worry about that later.”

“My people in the Fleet will handle it. But the Sword—”

“Let it be
lost,
for Fire’s sake, Arhm’n! It’s
her
the damned Artaleirhin are after, not what she stole. She is poison, that woman! Kill her now before she becomes some kind of symbol for noble rebellion.”

“Before the sickness spreads any further,” said the third man. “And the Sword is also likely to be contaminated forever after by its association with her; it will be no more use to us as a symbol. The news of its loss can be managed, too. As that of tr’Siedhri’s death, when that finally happens.”

“Damn the man, is he unable to cooperate with
anything?
I thought he would have died by now—”

“Still ‘critical,’” Urellh said. “Well, he can’t last long in
Gorget
’s infirmary; he needs surgical routines with which they’re not equipped to provide him. And their master surgeon knows which way the wind is blowing; he’ll do nothing heroic. Never mind Farmer Gurri—he’s paid for his treason, and he’ll soon be mucking out the Elements’ stables. As for t’Rllaillieu, Arhm’n, capture and trial are now the wrong way to handle her. She must die immediately, before she can do any more damage.”

There was a long silence. Arhm’n looked at tr’Anierh.

“Expediency,” tr’Anierh said, “I think, requires this of us now. This unrest is caused—and spread—by uncertainty. The best way to settle the unrest is by providing the rebels and would-be rebels with a certainty they cannot contest: that she is finally gone, forever, beyond any possibility of rescue, exculpation, or pardon. Let us make it unanimous, Arhm’n. In the present circumstances, we three must not be seen to be divided. Too much rests on it.”

The silence stretched out.

“Tell them to go ahead with it, then,” Arhm’n muttered. He stood watching them taking the scaffolding away from the great dome across the way. “Problems may be multiplying at the moment, but shortly their number will decrease by one…one very
large
one.”

Sleep forsook Jim early that morning, after only a few hours, and would not come back. The clock was ticking toward Fox’s deadline, and the tension ruined his sleep. By the time he had breakfast and got up to the bridge, it was still only seven hours until the meeting at which Ael’s status would be clarified, and everything would blow up, one way or another. And there had been no answer from Ael, even though Jim knew she might send none even if she agreed with him. Her concerns about the security of information on her own ship could well be behind the silence.

On the bridge, Mr. Spock was standing at his viewer, looking down it steadily, making delicate adjustments at one side of it, and he did not look up at the sound of the lift doors opening and shutting. Jim went and sat down in the center seat, and when the morning duty yeoman came to him with the order-of-the-day padd, he said softly, “How long has he been at it, Nyarla?”

The tall, dark-haired yeoman glanced over at Spock and said as softly, “At least since I first came in, Captain—three hours and fifty-four minutes ago.”

Jim nodded as he looked down the padd and initialed the bottom of it. A Syan had a circadian-based clock in her head as accurate as Spock’s, for different reasons, so the phrasing was nothing unusual. But her presence here was. “You’re not supposed to be on for a couple of hours yet,” Jim said.

She raised her eyebrows. “After I finish budding,” she said, “I’m always on edge. Present circumstances…”

“Understood,” Jim said, and handed her back the stylus and the padd. “Did that go smoothly, by the way?”

“No problems, Captain,” Nyarla said. “Except, as usual, the new personality is starting to complain about wanting her own quarters.” She put up her eyebrows, looking resigned. “Same as always. ‘Twelve’s a crowd…’”

“Well, let the doctor know if it starts to be a problem.”

“I will, sir.” She headed for the turbolift. Jim raised his eyebrows, once again making a mental note to ask McCoy exactly how he dealt with a crewmember who budded off a new subsection of her brain, and hence a new personality, every eight months or so. Though probably McCoy would refuse to tell him much, on confidentiality grounds.

Sulu came in as Nyarla went out. He relieved the duty helmsman and started checking out his console. Jim glanced over his shoulder and saw that Scotty’s station was empty. “Commander, has Mr. Scott come on duty yet?” he said to Uhura.

“Came in and went out again half an hour ago, Captain,” she said. “He’s down in engineering with K’s’t’lk and a couple of his staff, going over some new Sunseed numbers, he said.”

Jim nodded. Everything running with the usual efficiency, but a little ahead of schedule.
Everybody else around here is getting as twitchy as I am,
he thought.
It can be a good thing…within reason. If the tension gets so great that it starts affecting response times…