Текст книги "Serpents Among the Ruins "

Автор книги: David George

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“Chancellor,” Vinok said, standing himself and bowing his head in her direction. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

Azetbur nodded, but thought, As if I could have done otherwise.The praetor had sent word of the Starfleet treachery to the senior members of the Klingon High Council, and not simply to Azetbur herself—not technically a violation of the diplomatic protocols between the two governments, but a move clearly designed to undermine Klingon relations with the Federation. Had the Romulan intelligence been delivered to her exclusively, she would have quietly sought to confirm or deny it, with the hope of being able to preserve the relationship between Qo’noS and Earth. But now…

Consul Vinok withdrew from Azetbur’s office, his footsteps echoing on the stone floor, the tall, ornamented doors swinging open at his approach. Beyond the threshold, four members of Klingon Internal Security stood guard. Two of those, Azetbur knew, would escort the Romulan from the fortress of the Great Hall.

“Chancellor,” Brigadier Kuron blustered. “We must—”

“Silence,” Azetbur said firmly, waiting for the doors to shut behind Vinok. She could see the ire on Kuron’s long, angular face—ire for the Federation and for her, she was sure—but he quieted, just as he had done when she’d quashed his vociferous reactions during the Romulan’s presentation. The doors, climbing halfway up the stone walls to the vaulted ceilings and arcing to a peak, swung closed with a loud thump, resounding in the great room. “Your opinion is of value to us, Kuron,” Azetbur said with tact, a weapon her father had taught her to use in her youth. “But it is not of value to the Romulans, nor is it their place to hear it.” She sat back down at the head of the table, her right hand automatically coming up to take hold of the walking stick leaning against her chair. In front of her, to her left, a number of isolinear data spikes sat heaped on the tabletop.

“The Romulans already know what I have to say,” Kuron protested. “What allof us should have to say.” He raised a leather-gloved fist, triangular silver teeth marching up the fingers, and pointed around the table at the three other High Council members present, though he refrained from gesturing toward Azetbur. “I say that the Federation is our enemy and seeks to crush us.”

Azetbur waited, her hand tightening about the top of the walking stick, hoping that she would not have to be the first one to defend the Empire’s relationship with the Federation. In the wake of her father’s death eighteen years ago, she had stepped forward and assumed the mantle of Klingon leadership. She had signed the Khitomer Accords, enacting the peace with the Federation for which her father had so desperately worked, and she had strived since then to maintain that peace. But because of her years of service to that cause, her voice now carried less weight than it once had; her positions were so well known and so well established that the actual content of what she said now was often overlooked.

“Do you really think that the Federation is our enemy?” Councillor Kest asked across the table from Kuron. The only one of the senior Council members not in the Klingon Defense Force—he worked for Imperial Intelligence—he still cut an imposing figure. Bald, with a thin mustache falling past the sides of his mouth to his chin, he appeared almost sinister. “Do you really think the Federation has given us food and energy and other aid for all these years, helped us rebuild our infrastructure and keep our military intact, so that they could then face a reinvigorated opponent in battle?”

“Klingons would,” Kuron declared. “Klingons would seek the glory of battle against a worthy adversary.”

“Klingons, yes,” Kest allowed. “But humans? Vulcans? Betazoids?”Azetbur saw that she had been right to convene the four senior Council members for this meeting, rather than the entire Council, more than two dozen strong. While Kest no longer openly allied himself with Azetbur—few did these days, amid the public grumbling about the ignominy of continuing to accept Federation charity—he at least provided a thoughtful, stabilizing voice, a voice that could easily have been lost in a larger gathering.

“The Federation does not seek honorable battle,” Kuron persisted. “They seek to wipe us out with a single weapon.”

“If that were true,” Azetbur said, “then they had that weapon in their grasp years ago. After Praxis was destroyed, all the Federation had to use to defeat us was apathy. If they’d ignored us, if they hadn’t responded to our sudden and significant needs, then we would not now be able to feed our people, much less be able to go into battle.”

“We are not now able to go into battle,” General Kaarg said. “Not full-scale battle against a fully committed adversary. Yes, the Federation provides us aid, but not enough for us to make ourselves as strong as possible.” The general, one of the highest-ranking officers in the Klingon Defense Force, had sat through the Romulan envoy’s presentation saying very little, as had his peer in the military, General Gorak. Both commanded large segments of the KDF, but the similarities between the two men ended there, Azetbur knew.

“General,” Brigadier Kuron said, “do you doubt the might of the Empire?”

“I do not doubt the Empire, Kuron,” Kaarg said. “But as Kahless the Unforgettable told us, ‘Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory.’ ” Kaarg, beefy and physically sluggish, had earned a name for himself as a battlefield tactician, defeating enemies not on the basis of force, but through careful planning and clever strategy. Two years ago, he had managed to forestall a Tholian incursion into space claimed by the Empire, utilizing a squadron of vessels dwarfed by his foe’s. Azetbur had heard some classify him derogatorily as a backroom planner, a thinker who lacked the ability to genuinely lead. Yet he had still stormed up the ranks of the Klingon military to his present position, and to an upper seat on the High Council.

“In whatever battles we fight,” General Gorak offered, “we will be victorious, or we will die honorable deaths. That is the Klingon way.” A stark contrast to Kaarg, Gorak was lean and muscular, and had developed a reputation as a warrior’s warrior, leading his men on the front ranks. Within the last year, he had crushed a major uprising on Ganalda IV, charging the battlements himself and slaying the rebel leader with a d’k tahgthrough the heart. From every report Azetbur had received, Gorak’s men worshipped him, and would follow him all the way to Sto-Vo-Kor.“But we need a reason to go to battle,” Gorak finished. He said nothing about how one of his men, Ditagh, worked even now to provide him with that reason by undermining the trilateral peace negotiations.

“There is the fact of Federation treachery,” Kuron fumed.

“It is a fact in name only,” Azetbur insisted, but she understood at once that the veracity of the Romulan assertion was irrelevant. The praetor would not have sent an envoy with sensor logs demonstrating the Starfleet testing of a metaweapon if those logs could have been easily dismissed. In one way or another, she would have to address the Romulan allegation, as well as its implications.

“Do you doubt what we just saw, Chancellor?” Kuron said, leaping to his feet and pointing at the clutch of data spikes. Azetbur and the councillors, along with the Romulan envoy, had viewed the contents of some of the spikes on a large monitor set into the wall to the left of the table, opposite the great chair that sat raised on a dais to the right. “Do you doubt—”

Azetbur swung the walking stick—the long, tapered incisor of some long-extinct saber-toothed beast—in a wide arc and brought it down on the tabletop, filling the chamber of her office with a loud report. The data spikes jumped. “Do not question me, Kuron,” Azetbur said. “I doubt everybody and everything. That is my duty as chancellor.” She paused, fixing the brigadier’s gaze with her own. “Now sit down,” she commanded him.

Kuron remained standing, though, and Azetbur thought that the challenge to her leadership from within the upper High Council had finally come. She tightened her hand around the walking stick—it had belonged to her father—and brought her free hand up to the d’k tahgshe wore at her waist. She prepared to vault to her feet and fight—for her chancellorship, and for her life. She had fought traitors to assume and keep her position, had survived early attempts from almost all quarters to see her relinquish it, and had daily battled her own prejudices and her own instinct for violence in order to do what was best for her people. She would not step down quietly.

But then General Kaarg stood from his chair, rising slowly. When he reached his full height, he turned his gaze upon Kuron, his eyes peering intensely from the soft, slack flesh of his face. “The chancellor told you to sit,” Kaarg told the brigadier calmly, though there was no mistaking the menace in his voice. Azetbur saw Kuron flex the fingers of both hands, the material of his gloves making scraping sounds as he did so. She thought for a moment that he might actually engage Kaarg, but then he returned to his seat, fixing his eyes downward.

It would not be the last time that the soft-brained partisan would confront her, Azetbur was sure, but that assessment concerned her very little; the brigadier’s blatant and head-strong opposition called too much attention to itself to be truly dangerous. What gave her pause had been the reactions of Kest and Gorak to Kuron’s brief challenge: neither of them had moved to defend the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire. She might have expected that of Gorak, considering his furtive machinations to sabotage the peace process, but that also told Azetbur something she needed to know about Kest. Public dissent for the Empire’s current relationship with the Federation must have been stronger than she thought for him to fail to come to her defense. Now more than ever, she would have to proceed with caution and vigilance. At least General Kaarg had revealed his loyalties to her.

As Azetbur pulled the walking stick from the table, returning it to its place at her side, Kest asked, “Federation treachery or no, what action will you take now, Chancellor?”

“I will have the Romulan information analyzed,” she said, dropping her hand onto the collection of data spikes. “If necessary, I will demand an explanation from the Federation.”

“An explanation,” Kuron repeated disgustedly, but he did not look up and he said nothing more.

“Will an explanation be enough?” Kest asked.

“We will see,” Azetbur said, but she already knew that an explanation would notbe enough. Fury boiled within her, and she imagined wielding her walking stick like a bludgeon, pounding the treacherous life out of whoever had put her in this position. Either the Romulans had manufactured the tale of a new Starfleet metaweapon, or the Federation had lied to her about their condemnation and repudiation of the creation of such weapons. Whichever the case, Azetbur would now be forced to react. And she would do so, but she pledged to herself that the action she would take would be of her own choosing, and not dictated by the political maneuverings of either the Romulans or the Federation. “I will do whatever I must to protect the Empire,” she concluded.

“Even if it means opposing the Federation?” Gorak asked.

Azetbur knew that she would seek to preserve the peace, because that served all sides, but she also knew that her only true loyalty was to her people. If she had to, she would fight against the Romulans or beside them, she would fight against the worlds of the Federation or beside them, as long as, in the end, the Klingon Empire remained standing. And it would matter not at all to Azetbur if that meant standing amid the dead bodies of Romulans, or the dead bodies of humans and Vulcans and Betazoids. All that mattered was Qo’noS.

“Yes,” she said, “even if it means opposing the Federation.” All eyes turned toward her then, even those of Kuron, all no doubt attempting to take the measure of her words. Azetbur did not wait for them to reach their judgments. Instead, she stood and addressed them. “I will convene a gathering of the full Council in a few days,” she told them. “We will discuss these matters and my decisions about them then.” She lifted her walking stick, turned, and walked away from the table, effectively dismissing the councillors.

Azetbur strode over to the wall opposite the door, in which a dozen tall, peaked windows stood open. As the sounds of chairs scraping along the floor and of retreating footsteps reached her from behind, she peered out from the top floor of the Great Hall at the First City, the capital of Qo’noS. In the distance, she spied the ritual flames of the Temples of Rogax and Molgar, both reaching upward like fiery fingers clutching at the sky. The spires of imperial structures dotted the urban landscape, proud and mighty symbols of a proud and mighty race. And down below the window, marking the entrance to the Great Hall, stood the great bronze statue of Kahless and Morath, depicted in their epic twelve-day battle over honor.

Azetbur gazed out of the window in silence for long moments, until she heard the door to her office open and somebody enter. She turned to see her efficient aide, Rinla, approaching.

“Chancellor,” Rinla said. “Do you require anything?”

“Yes,” Azetbur said, because she had already begun to formulate a means of dealing with the Romulans and the Federation. “Contact the Romulan space station Algeron,” she said. “I want to talk to Ambassador Kage.”

Minus Six: Smoke

Los Tirasol Mentir swam with abandon. He flexed his muscles with all of his strength, sending massive sinusoidal motion coursing through the length of his body—down from his head, through his torso, and into his tail structure and caudal fin. The walls and floor of the artificial watercourse dashed past to either side and below, a ceiling of air above. He could feel the cooling touch of the lubrication he secreted, allowing a laminar flow of water past his scales.

Inside, though, he felt only heat. His grief manifested as anger, the terrible end of Universeand its crew seeming like a betrayal by life itself. Nor had the tragedy finished its taking; Blackjack Harriman, a man Mentir had called a friend for half a century, lay comatose in the station’s infirmary, waiting helplessly for the black tides of death to envelop him and carry him away.

Mentir thrust his tail left, right, and on, channeling his rage into movement. He sliced through the water with ease, his short but limblike pectoral fins swept back along his sides and, together with his smaller dorsal and pelvic fins, keeping his body stable as he swam. Once, twice, half a dozen times around the two-hundred-meter elliptical canal, racing like a silvery torpedo, Mentir sought to exhaust himself. He spent the energy he could, attempting to starve his emotions of their force.

Finally, another half-dozen circuits at speed, and fatigue set in. His fury abated, but in its wake came a mournful emptiness. Mentir stilled his tail, and he slowed and dropped, until he floated just a few centimeters above the floor of the waterway. He closed his eyes and tried to blank his mind, but unwanted images assaulted him: he pictured the silent explosion that had torn apart Universeand its crew, envisioned the expanding shock wave that had pummeled Ad Astra, saw his friend smashing headfirst into a bulkhead.

Seeking to distract himself, Mentir tried to imagine being back home in the depths of Alonis. But the water here, maintained as it was for all the inhabitants of Space Station KR-3, could not compare to his native seas. Here, the color, the density, the motion, the solids content, all varied too much from his home waters to allow him even a moment’s fantasy. And although he had designed his quarters and office here on the station to more closely mimic the familiar environment of Alonis, he still often found himself longing for the oceans of his birth.

A pair of short midrange tones pulsed through the canal, followed by a spurt of muffled clicks and squeals. Mentir opened his eyes, immediately recognizing the communications signal, as well as the sound of somebody attempting to contact him, though he could not at this distance distinguish the “words.” He switched his tail once, moving slowly forward and upward, until he rose to the midpoint of the channel. Then he surged into motion. A third of the way around, he arrived at an underwater communications console, one of three installed on the station. Another had been set up in his quarters, and another in his office.

Mentir swam in close to the console and focused. His people had no opposable digits, but they possessed a short-range psychokinetic ability, which they utilized to manipulate water into effectively solid tools. With his mind, Mentir pushed a concentration of water against an activation pad, then opened his short, flat snout and issued a quick series of snaps and chirps. The universal translator in the communications console, he knew, would broadcast his sounds as “This is Admiral Mentir. Go ahead.”

“Admiral, this is Dr. Van Riper in the infirmary,”came the response, interpreted into the language of the Alonis. “I thought you’d want to know: Admiral Harriman has regained consciousness.”

At once, Mentir felt a rush of energy course through his body. After being operated on a day and a half ago, Blackjack had remained in a coma, with the prognosis for his recovery indeterminate at best. The news that his chief medical officer had just delivered came as a welcome surprise.

A string of questions flooded Mentir’s mind– Is Blackjack lucid? Has he recovered any of his strength? Does this mean he’ll be able to recuperate completely?—but he would ask those once he arrived at the infirmary; right now, he wanted only to see his friend. “Thank you, Doctor,” he clicked and twittered. “I’ll be right there. Mentir out.” He closed the channel with a burst of thought.

Just past the communications console, a small spur led from the main oval of the watercourse. Mentir swam into it, to where he had left his environmental suit when he’d entered the channel. He slipped his head inside the helmet, then settled his body atop the open, formfitting suit, which he maneuvered closed around him using his psychokinesis. He heard the cottony sniks of the electromagnetic locks as they fastened, followed by the whisper of the environmental controls as they automatically activated. The suit held a layer of water against Mentir’s scales, and adjusted the characteristics of the water so that it more closely matched that of Alonis. The unit also included an aquatic rebreathing device.

Once secure in his portable artificial environment, Mentir swam forward to the antigrav chair in which he traveled when not in water. He settled back into the seat and directed it upward, operating it with slight but specific body movements. The chair slowly lifted out of the channel, water spilling back down with a splatter. As he rose, he saw few people in the natatorium—the elliptical waterway surrounded a long, wide swimming pool—and those present swam quietly and alone. Since the news that a starship had been lost had reached KR-3, the mood among Mentir’s crew had been understandably somber.

Mentir floated into a locker room adjoining the swim center, and then to a smaller room within. There, several fans dried both his environmental suit and his antigrav chair. Then he exited into a corridor and headed for the nearest turbolift. The infirmary was actually housed on this level, but in a different one of the station’s three arms. Only five decks through, Space Station KR-3 looked from above like a letter Y,the wide arms of the station meeting at obtuse angles.

Mentir entered the lift and identified his destination, a device in his helmet transmitting the sound of his sub-aqua voice out into the air. The antigrav chair swayed slightly as the turbolift began its horizontal journey, and Mentir felt momentarily unsettled. He realized that he had anxiety about visiting the infirmary. He had not seen Blackjack since his old friend had been brought back to KR-3 after the accident; Mentir had instead heeded the counsel of Enterprise’s chief medical officer, who had suggested that staying away might be the better course.

Blackjack,Mentir thought. They’d met fifty-seven years ago, when the Starfleet vessel Allegiancehad arrived at Alonis on a diplomatic mission. Mentir had just been embarking on what would turn out to be a fleeting political career, and Ensign Harriman had been one of Allegiance’s officers selected to accompany the Federation delegation. They’d met during the conference and had quickly become friends; Mentir had particularly appreciated Blackjack’s straightforward manner and punctilious nature, characteristics that had only grown stronger through the years.

The turbolift slowed, crossing the threshold into the station’s hub. Mentir felt the lift sweep into a broad arc, then pick up speed again as it passed out of the hub and into another of the station’s arms. The infirmary, he knew, was not much farther.

After the summit on Alonis all those years ago, Mentir had stayed in contact with Blackjack, and the two had grown close. Back in those days, they’d often joked that they knew far more about each other’s culture than did the diplomats. And years later, when Mentir had decided to apply to Starfleet Academy, Blackjack—a starship captain at that point—had helped him become only the second Alonis accepted. These days, several more of Mentir’s people served in Starfleet, and a dialogue had begun on his homeworld about whether or not to submit a request for membership in the Federation. Although Mentir knew that numerous issues would have to be resolved before Alonis would be invited to join, he hoped that it would happen within the next two or three decades. And Blackjack had supported that position, becoming an outspoken proponent for the Alonis over the past several years. There were few people in Mentir’s life whom he respected and appreciated as much as his old friend.

The turbolift slowed again, this time coming to a stop. The doors parted, revealing one of the entrances to the infirmary directly ahead. Mentir eased from the lift, crossed the corridor, and entered. He moved through the main section of the infirmary, past a series of empty biobeds, and over to the wide door leading to the intensive-care section. The door opened as he reached it, and he floated inside.

As the door closed behind him, he spotted KR-3’s chief medical officer standing at a console to the right, studying a readout. “Doctor,” Mentir said, and the lanky physician turned at the sound of his voice.

“Admiral,” Van Riper said.

“How is he?” Mentir asked. Then, feeling the need to say his friend’s name, he asked, “How is Admiral Harriman?”

“We don’t know,” Van Riper said, walking over from the console. “But he doesn’t appear to be appreciably better, even though he’s no longer unconscious.”

“So you haven’t upgraded your prognosis?” Mentir asked, surprised. He had expected better news than this.

“We haven’t,” Van Riper said. “There’s just no way to tell how fast or how well Admiral Harriman’s brain will heal.”

“But surely waking from his coma must be a positive sign,” Mentir said, seeking some measure of hope.

“Yes,” Van Riper said cautiously, stretching the word out, “but that’s not in itself cause to believe that the admiral can overcome his injuries.”

“I see,” Mentir said, though he wasn’t necessarily sure that he did. “Is he lucid?”

“He seems to be,” Van Riper said, “but he’s also extremely tired, and Dr. Morell has reported that he’s shown some signs of distress.” Even though Blackjack was being treated on Space Station KR-3, Mentir knew that he still remained in the primary care of the Enterprise’s CMO, who had first treated him.

“Distress?” Mentir asked, but then he heard the door open behind him. He turned his antigrav chair to see Blackjack’s son enter.

“Admiral,” Captain Harriman said, his expression stoic. He did not look as though he’d been sleeping particularly well, though.

“Captain,” Mentir returned. He knew that there must be some physical resemblance between father and son, but he had never been able to see it. Nor had he ever seen much similarity in their personalities. But then, few people could match up against Blackjack; he cut such a commanding figure, tall and muscular, with a strong, self-assured presence. Captain Harriman was his own man, of course, and a fine commander, but he was not his father. “I assume that Dr. Van Riper contacted you about your father.”

“Actually, Idid,” came another voice.

Mentir looked around to see Dr. Morell approaching from one of the intensive-care bays. “Doctor,” he greeted her.

“Admiral,” Morell said, and then, looking with some apparent concern to the younger Harriman, “Captain.”

“May we see him?” Captain Harriman asked.

Morell hesitated, peering at Mentir and Dr. Van Riper in quick succession before looking back at Harriman.

“May I see you privately for a moment, Captain?” she asked. Mentir thought that she seemed very uncomfortable.

“It’s all right, Doctor,” Harriman said, and Mentir got the impression that the captain knew what Morell had to tell him. Mentir thought that he knew as well. “Go ahead.”

“I mentioned to Admiral Harriman that you and Admiral Mentir would be coming to see him,” Morell said, still clearly ill at ease. “He got…um…agitated.”

“He doesn’t want visitors?” Dr. Van Riper asked, but Mentir knew that was not the case.

“He doesn’t want me,”Captain Harriman said.

“No, sir,” Morell agreed. “And I’m afraid, under the circumstances, it wouldn’t be a good idea for you to go in. The admiral’s in no shape to be upset.”

“I understand,” the captain said, and Mentir could see that he did, although Mentir himself did not—at least not entirely. He knew that a rift had long ago developed between father and son, but he had never known why that had happened, or why the two had never resolved whatever issues lay between them. Mentir had inquired a few times many years ago, but Blackjack had always deflected the conversation elsewhere, never once bringing up the subject himself.

Captain Harriman started to leave, but Mentir stopped him. “Would you like me to tell your father something for you?” he asked.

“Tell him—” the captain began, but then he seemed to catch himself. “No. No thank you, Admiral.” He turned and exited.

A stony silence drifted into the room, which Mentir finally broke. “I’d like to see him then,” he said.

“Of course,” Morell said. “This way.” She gestured toward one end of the long room. “I’ll have to ask you to stay only a short time, Admiral. Just a couple of minutes at most. Admiral Harriman is obviously very weak and very tired.”

“I understand, Doctor.” Mentir followed Morell to the bay in which Blackjack lay. She walked up to the side of the biobed and leaned down near her patient’s face, blocking him from view.

“Admiral Mentir is here to see you,” she said quietly. She backed away, allowing Mentir to maneuver his antigrav chair in beside the biobed. He peered over at his friend and felt horrified by what he saw. Bandages swathed the entire top of Blackjack’s head, and covered most of one side of his face. But even where his head and face were not visible beneath the gauze, the impression was that of flesh that had been compromised, bone that had been fractured. His complexion barely contrasted with his bandages, so pallid did it appear. His lips had thinned into an ashen line. A respirator encircled his chest and evidently breathed for him. Blackjack looked bloodless, his body seeming too frail to hold life within it.

Mentir leaned in toward his longtime friend. “Blackjack,” he said gently, “it’s Tirasol.” Blackjack’s one visible eyelid fluttered, but did not open all the way. His eye appeared hazy and unfocused, as though attempting to see through a fog. He looked not just exhausted, but hurt.

In pain,Mentir thought. Both physically and emotionally.

He waited a few moments, and when Blackjack said nothing, and seemed to see nothing, Mentir thought that he should probably leave. But as he prepared to move away, Blackjack’s gaze found him. “Tirasol,” he said in a voice barely strong enough to be called a whisper, the syllables almost lost in the murmur of the respirator. “I wanted…to tell you…it worked.”

“‘It worked’?” Mentir repeated, unsure what Blackjack meant. Was he coherent, or had his medical condition rendered his words meaningless?

“The…” Blackjack sputtered. “The Romulans…”

Mentir waited for Blackjack to continue, but he said no more. “What about the Romulans?” he finally asked. “Blackjack, what about the Romulans?” But Blackjack’s eyelid flickered closed. Had he been hallucinating, or disoriented, or had he actually been trying to tell Mentir something? “Blackjack,” Mentir said. “Blackjack.”

“Admiral,” Dr. Morell said, moving back in beside Mentir. “I think that’s enough.”

“Can you revive him, Doctor?” Mentir asked. “Can you bring him more awake?”

“I don’t know,” Morell said. “But certainly not without putting him at risk.”

“All right,” Mentir said. He looked at his friend, and felt as though he didn’t really recognize him. “If he gets stronger, if he can talk,” he said, “I want to know immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mentir backed his antigrav chair away from the biobed, taking one last look at Blackjack. Then he turned and headed out of the bay, wondering if his friend would ever be the same again.

The Klingon recording device sailed through the air in a high arc, nearly striking the ceiling before it descended to the conference table with a crash. The device skittered across the flaxen surface, until it came to rest not far from where the Federation ambassador, Endara, sat. He looked at it, Kage thought, as though it might leap at his throat at any moment.