Текст книги "This Gray Spirit "

Автор книги: Heathe Jarman

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Likely embarrassed by the intensity of her outburst, zh’Thane refused to look at Ro. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” She exited without a backward glance.

Ro spent the remaining few minutes of her shift considering how best to present zh’Thane’s petition to Kira when her relief reported in. Sergeant Etana Kol nodded to Ro but scarcely said a word as she took Ro’s place at the security desk. Etana hadn’t been her usual jovial self since the Defiantdeparted; like several others in the station crew, the deputy had someone aboard Defiantwhom she missed terribly. And from what Ro knew of the relationship, three months would be the longest time Kol and Krissten had been apart since they’d gotten together. That must be hard. Still, Etana’s not stupid. She must have known getting involved with a Starfleet officer might mean prolonged time apart. “You okay, Kol?”

Etana looked up with a smile. Ro was impressed by how easily it seemed to fall into place. The sergeant shrugged. “Hate sleeping alone.”

Ro smiled back. “Don’t worry; when she gets back, you’ll be annoyed you don’t have the bed to yourself anymore.”

Etana laughed. “You’re probably right. Night, Lieutenant.”

“G’night, Kol.”

As she left the security office, Ro saw to her surprise that zh’Thane was still just outside, chatting pleasantly with Hiziki Gard, the Federation’s security liaison and aide to the Trill amabassador. Ro nodded to Gard as she passed them, and gleaned from the few bits she overheard that zh’Thane’s earlier angst had passed.

Was that whole thing an act?Ro wondered, stopping in front of the turbolift. As she reconsidered what she would say to Kira, Ro found herself wondering how much of zh’Thane’s performance had been staged and how much had been genuine.

“Lieutenant.”

Ro looked over her shoulder and saw the councillor standing alone again near the security office, Gard having apparently moved on.

“Thank you,” zh’Thane mouthed soundlessly. Her eyes brimmed with pain for the briefest of moments before the composed politician’s facade descended like a mask. Then she turned away, disappearing into the humanoid tide of the Promenade.

5

“Commander, I can’t access theDefiant,” Nog hissed.

What the hell is Nog doing in my room?Vaughn thought, eyelids fluttering as he bounced back and forth between half-sleep and wakefulness. He couldn’t recall his dream save that his hair was the brown of his youth and there were swaying palm trees in the background. He thought Ruriko was there, but as always, he was unable to reach her.

“Commander, are you there?”

Blindly, Vaughn felt his way to the end table, groping for his combadge. When he clutched it in his hand, he pressed it and said,

“The door won’t open, Lieutenant?”

“Sir, there’s a contingent of Yrythny soldiers here—with weapons. And they pointed them at me when I tried to board the ship.”

Fully awake, Vaughn swore and sat up, reaching for his uniform. “I’ll be right there, Nog. Vaughn out.”

What a difference a few hours make! After the night’s last debriefing, Vaughn had felt comfortable with how things stood—at least with Nog. The Defiant’s problems seemed cut and dried: if it’s broken, fix it. Repairs would be complex—taking far longer than any of them desired—but the Yrythny had pledged to be generous with cooperation and resources. Maybe that was his mistake: assuming that the worst was past them. He’d served in Starfleet long enough to know that whenever a situation looked bleak, it was bound to be a veritable black hole before it improved. Nog and his team had even addressed his most pressing concern, the development of a theoretical model for a defense system against the Cheka weapon. That alone should have tipped me off that this whole thing would be shot to hell before breakfast.

Vaughn recalled that, after midnight, Julian had wandered up to the repair bay. Bashir, he knew, didn’t need as much sleep as most humans, so Vaughn didn’t look askance at the doctor’s middle-of-the-night proposal to inventory sickbay. Anyone willing to work was welcome. In a flash of inspiration, Julian had suggested using the humanoid immune system as a model for a defensive weapon. The ideas tumbled out from there.

If the Cheka nanobots represented invading viruses and bacteria, then femtobots—even smaller and designed by the Defiantstaff—could be used be like the CD8 T and B cells deployed by humanoid bone marrow to gnaw through the viruses. Nog’s plan called for maintaining a cloud of femtobots in stasis just beneath the ship’s shield envelope. If Defianttripped another web weapon, the femtobots would activate and attack as soon as the nanobots pierced the shields. Brilliant.

In theory.

The trick, of course, was that although it was well known that molecular cybernetics didn’t stop at the nanite level, creating femtobots able to withstand the stress of the shield matrix andhard enough to pierce the nanobots was uncharted territory. The Defiantsimply didn’t possess the structural materials Nog and his engineers would need to make the plan work. Their computer simulations, run using variations of readily available materials, had all failed. Either the femtobots disintegrated in proximity to the shields, or the ship sustained critical damage due to delayed or partial deployment. The femtobots required something more resilient than Defiant’s replicators or her engineers could fabricate.

Even though a significant challenge awaited Nog, Vaughn hadn’t been too worried. Nog’s resourcefulness and innovative abilities never ceased to amaze him. Vaughn had instead assumed his biggest problem would be his hosts’hastily conceived notion that Dax should facilitate some mediation process between warring Yrythny factions.

Prime Directive and first contact issues aside—and his concerns regarding those protocols weren’t exactly minor—Vaughn had reservations about letting Dax get mixed up in the Yrythny’s internal politics. Despite her zeal and seriousness about her transfer to command—and the fact that her past-life experiences gave her unique advantages as his XO—nothing in the lieutenant’s Starfleet background or his own interactions with her shouted that she ought to have her responsibilities broadened to include diplomacy. Granted, her counselor training lent her legitimate, professional expertise in the area of xenopsychology, but Vaughn still remembered Curzon Dax’s questionable judgment during the Betreka affair, and the choices that had nearly gotten them both killed. Ezri wasn’t Curzon, of course—not exactly—and while she was a quick study, Vaughn wasn’t about to turn over the fate of a world poised on the brink of civil war to her, no matter what gods appeared to have ordained it.

Sprinting up the stairs that led to Defiant’s docking bay, Vaughn saw the problem immediately. Just as Nog had reported, a squadron of armed, uniformed Yrythny soldiers blocked the ship’s airlock. Nog was huddled with several engineers some distance away. The chief engineer’s face relaxed visibly when he saw his CO; Vaughn hoped the situation hadn’t worsened since he left his quarters.

“Report, Lieutenant.”

Nog launched into his story at once. “I arrived at 0600 to resume command of the repair team, accompanied, as you can see by Ensign Senkowski, Ensign Leishman, and Ensign Gordimer.”

At mention of their names, auburn-haired Senkowski, smiley Leishman and stocky Gordimer in succession, straightened up and nodded a polite acknowledgment to their commander.

Nog continued, “We discovered the troops you see here blocking the airlock; they denied us access to the Defiant.Lieutenant McCallum, Ensign Merimark, Ensign Permenter, and Crewman M’Nok are still aboard. I’ve already contacted them and they haven’t been threatened, or had their work interfered with. They didn’t even know they were trapped inside until I told them.”

“What do these guards have to say?”

“Nothing, sir, except that they’re acting under orders to secure the ship.”

There must be a point to this. Even implied threats aren’t arbitrary.“Have you contacted the Yrythny authorities?” If Vaughn were to guess, he’d assume that one of their friendly dinner companions was responsible for their armed visitors.

“Sir, we’ve tried to raise our concerns with the Yrythny government, but our inquiries have been rerouted, ignored or gone unacknowledged,” Nog said.

I just bet they have,Vaughn thought. They want us to stew in our worry a little longer. Makes us more pliable, more readily agreeable to their demands when they finally get around to making them.

“And for that, I apologize, Lieutenant Nog,” Assembly Chair Rashoh’s rumbling voice came from behind them. “I had hoped to contact you myself, Commander, before your engineers arrived for duty this morning, but obviously my good intentions came to naught.”

So you’ve decided we’ve waited long enough, or you’ve grown impatient. Which one is it?“As you say Assembly Chair,” Vaughn said placidly, turning to face Rashoh and his party. None of their identities surprised him, just the failure to bring their token Lower Assembly member, Keren, along as a spectator. Accompanying the Assembly Chair were Vice Chair Jeshoh and another Yrythny official Vaughn didn’t recall meeting. He considered them cautiously, wondering what ill tidings they brought. “Imagine my concern at discovering my crew had been denied access to ourship.” Let the games begin…

“Yourship, certainly,” the Assembly Chair said with a toothy smile, his never-blinking eyes glinting like obsidian. “As your lieutenant has no doubt reported to you, we haven’t violated your sovereignty and boarded your vessel. Rather, we have some concerns that we wanted to discuss.”

“Concerns?” Vaughn raised an eyebrow. What trumped-up excuses have you spent the night dreaming up?He offered Rashoh a warm smile of his own.

“The radiation contamination inside is immense. We require assurance that our own people won’t be impacted,” the Assembly Chair said soberly.

Vaughn smiled tightly at Rashoh. “Mister Nog?”

Taking his cue, Nog opened his tricorder and panned it in the direction of the airlock. After a moment he turned back to Vaughn and held up the results of his scan.

To Rashoh, Vaughn said, “I encourage you to verify these findings with your own instruments, but according to this, you and your people have nothing to fear.”

A pointy-faced Yrythny wearing billowing muted green pants and a gaudy macramé headpiece stepped forward with outturned feet, bowed, and said in a hesitant voice, “I am Science Minister M’Yeoh. Let me come to the point, Commander.”

“By all means,” Vaughn said pleasantly.

Threading his lengthy, bony fingers together and flexing his fingers rhythmically—as one might tap one’s toes—Minister M’Yeoh waddled closer to Vaughn. “As I see it, you have three options,” he said. “Clearly, your ship can’t fly or sustain life for long. Should”—he gulped—“you decide that it’s irreparable you might wish to trade your ship for one of ours. Or you might decide that our world suits you as a place to rest temporarily. Perhaps contact your own people in the Alpha Quadrant and wait for them to come and bring you home.”

“Or they can repair the Defiantusing our resources—personnel, raw materials and so forth,” Jeshoh interjected. “As we promisedour guests yesterday.”

At least Jeshoh’s not pretending to go along with this charade.“Vice Chair Jeshoh offers the only option I’m willing to take,” Vaughn said, waiting for the word he felt certain would follow.

“But that’s our problem, Commander.”

There it is,Vaughn thought ruefully. The “but.”Would that someday sentient nature surprised him even a little, but it often seemed as if all species—all thinking beings—functioned on similar paradigms, even this far from home.

Assembly Chair Rashoh clucked, jiggling the pockets of skin hanging off his jaw. “We want to be generous with you, but the reports from your chief technologist indicate that your ship will require extensive—and expensive—resources. Much of what you need we obtain from foreign trade, and as we’ve already explained, our conflict with the Cheka has limited our supply runs. How can we possibly give you what you need without risking shortages to our own vessels?” Assembly Chair Rashoh’s sad expression lingered on Vaughn for a long moment, allowing his words to hang in the air.

“I understand completely,” Vaughn said. “Would you consider a trade?”

Smiling, the Assembly Chair took Vaughn by the elbows. “I believe we would be open to such a proposal.”

“Hmmm. I have some suggestions, but perhaps you have something in mind?”

M’Yeoh said, “We’ve reviewed this model for a defensive weapon that your Lieutenant Nog designed and found it has merit. But like you, we lack a raw material suitable for construction of the femtobots.”

Hearing mention of his work on the defense system, Nog sidled up close to M’Yeoh. Vaughn had momentary concerns about how the Yrythny government had been privy to Nog’s technological innovations, but then he recalled that a group of engineers from the Avarilhad asked if they could help out. In spite of their rough first contact, the Yrythny engineers had bonded with Nog and his staff.

“Among the trade avenues still open to us, we have a membership in a matter Consortium several sectors away that deals in unique and rare materials,” the Assembly Chair explained.

“Matter Consortium?” Vaughn asked.

“A nexus of free trade situated near a natural particle fountain in this sector. The Consortium harvests the outflows of the particle fountain. The matter emerging from the fountain has undergone intense gravitational pressure and temperature fluctuations. Its molecular and subatomic structure is fundamentally altered by these forces. We believe it will meet your requirements.”

Nog was rapt with attention. Technology that facilitated particle fountain mining, while found in the Federation, such as the one at Tyrus VIIA, was still primarily experimental. Vaughn could see the cogs in his mind spinning furiously as he processed Rashoh’s words. When Nog leaned forward, as if he were preparing to question the Assembly Chair, Vaughn touched his shoulder, wanting him to hold back until he had the complete picture.

“You’re saying we can obtain the structural materials we need from this Consortium?”

Rashoh smiled but shook his head. “Unfortunately, trading is closed to nonmembers. However, as members ourselves, we would be willing to act on your behalf. You could travel on Avaril,with your ship, allowing your crew time to work on your repairs during the journey. Our long range probes have recently verified a route to the Consortium that is still free of web weapons.”

“A generous offer,” Vaughn said, relieved that the game was nearing an end. “But what could we possibly offer you in return?”

“Allow your first officer, Lieutenant Dax, to stay behind and mediate talks between the Houseborn and the Wanderers.”

And your first instinct was right, Elias. The situation with Ezri is the real problem here.He exhaled deeply, considered the group standing before him and saw in their faces a resolute determination to do whatever it took to bring their will to pass.

“Agreed,” Vaughn said. “Threats weren’t necessary, Assembly Chair, Minister M’Yeoh, Vice Chair Jeshoh. Reasonable people negotiate and I am nothing if not reasonable. Your soldiers will now leave and my engineers will go to work.” He smiled coldly at his blackmailers.

The Yrythny delegation didn’t bother to hide their relief at Vaughn’s answer. Why hadn’t they just asked?In his more than eighty years in Starfleet, whether it was dropping into a war zone or playing cat-and-mouse games with the Tal Shiar, Vaughn had learned that desperation drives otherwise sane people to do crazy things. The time for asking whether Dax should do this is probably past—the question now is whether Daxcan do this. For all our sakes, I hope her plucky determination—and the cumulative wisdom of all her lives—will be enough.

Shar waited impatiently as the troop transport in which he rode crept slowly through the narrow needle, toward the massive docking platform. Through the windows, he could see Luthia’s winking lights diminishing as he inched closer to the Avaril.Would that he could have joined the others an hour ago when the crew checked out of the guest quarters! But he—along with Candlewood, Juarez, and McCallum—was remaining behind to assist Lieutenant Dax. Loading the shuttlecraft Saganwith the away team’s supplies and piloting the ship to a bay closer to their guest quarters had left him little time for a pressing personal errand. He still hoped he had enough time to pull Commander Vaughn aside to make a private request. Shar rarely made such requests; he hoped Vaughn understood that.

If Commander Vaughn followed the pattern established thus far, Defiantwould send its official weekly report to Deep Space 9 while at the Consortium. “Letters” from the crew to their friends and families were transmitted on an “as time and equipment permitted” basis. At present, both were in short supply, but he didn’t wish to let another week pass. When the next report was transmitted to Colonel Kira, Shar hoped to include a message to his bondmates: not only because they expected one, but because he deeply regretted the last one he had sent.

His first letter home had been stilted. Still smarting from the sting of his zhavey’s ploy, he’d been at a loss as to what to say. She had staged her ambush—bringing his bondmates to the station all the way from Andor to persuade him not to join the Defiant’s mission—because she loved him and believed his choices would lead him to unhappiness. But that didn’t lessen his frustration with her tactics. There was a fine line between “force” and “guilt” to Shar’s way of thinking. Especially since she hadsucceeded in making him feel guilty. He missed the days when their relationship was less adversarial.

All these feelings had filled Shar when he’d recorded his first message to his zhavey.He finally settled on a matter-of-fact recitation of his experiences coupled with brief well wishes and words of affection. Had he sent what he had recorded on the first pass, Shar expected that Charivretha might have come chasing through the wormhole after him. Saying the words, however, had been enough to make him feel better, so he erased the inflammatory accusations in favor of his proper letter. He might send his first draft later on, when the Defiantwas too far away to catch…

Zhavey:

I am sorry to have disappointed you. Please believe me when I say that I would not have chosen as I did if I didn’t believe that I was doing what was best for all concerned. Has not your whole life been about the greater good of Andor? Is it too hard to understand that I’ve become what I am by learning from your example?

Even more difficult was the letter to his bondmates. All his words were justwords. Empty. Hollow. Failing utterly to convey the heartache he felt, or to acknowledge the heartache he knew he’d caused them. Why were pain and love coupled so tightly together?

Dearest Thriss, Anichent, Dizhei—I love and miss you all, but this mission must come before my return to Andor for theshelthreth. I hope that someday you understand my choices and forgive me. While it might seem I’m being selfish, I’m doing this for you, for all of our people. Our people’s present course merely postpones the inevitable—we must explore new possibilities if we are to defy our fate. And if a few aren’t willing to make sacrifices for the many…Unfortunately, because you are matched to me, you are among the few. You didn’t choose this for yourselves and for that, I’m sorry.

In the early weeks of the mission, Shar had watched Vaughn and his daughter, Ensign Tenmei, tentatively feel their way back to reconciliation after years of estrangement due to her belief that Vaughn had put his duty to Starfleet before his love of her mother. Shar wondered if someday he would have to make a similar reconciliation with his bondmates.

Early this morning, he had come up empty as he fumbled for the right words to express his thoughts to those closest to his heart. Never mind that he had years of practice recording such messages, having spent so much time away from them, communicating solely through subspace letters. No matter where his Starfleet assignments had taken him in the past, maintaining his ties to his bondmates had been a priority. Infrequent were the times when, as a group or individually, they could take leave from schooling or work.

While Dizhei’s teaching responsibilities tethered her to Andor, both Anichent and Thriss left home for personal and professional reasons. Anichent’s research and conferences had provided him with opportunities to visit Shar at the Academy. Thriss regularly went from Andor to Betazed with her own zhavey,a visiting professor from the Andorian Art Academy to Betazed University. During the war, Thriss had managed to meet Shar for weekend leave on three occasions. In the war’s darkest hours, each of her visits had buoyed him up and renewed his resolve to press forward in the face of reports enumerating Starfleet losses. Her dreams of a post-war future underscored his determination to make the most of every duty shift, helped him avoid discouragement when the casualty reports listed the names of friends and officers he had served with.

Damn it,Zhavey! I had reconciled myself to not seeing them before I came home from the Gamma Quadrant. I had prepared myself and knew I could make it for another few months and then return home for theshelthreth. But you couldn’t trust me enough to accept my choice without questioning.

Of all of them, he thought Thriss would have most appreciated this voyage. She never shied away from new experiences, always living close to the edge, plunging into the unknown when the rest of them cowered beneath their covers. Since they were children, she had always been the first to take a dare. More than once, her risks had landed her in the infirmary or before a disciplinary council, but her passion never dimmed. She never ceased to surprise him.

He still remembered the look on his bondmates faces as they stood by while Charivretha demanded he return with them to Andor.

Ever the optimist, Dizhei had tried to look cheerful, but her cloudy eyes and too bright smile betrayed her true feelings. Anichent’s silence during the argument had disappointed Shar. After so many years of closeness, Shar assumed that he, even more than Thriss, would know why Shar needed to join this mission. Anichent had been Shar’s first love, the one who, early on, had encouraged his academic pursuits, fed his ambitions to attend the Academy. Hadn’t it been Anichent who, in his pragmatic, methodical way, outlined the sacrifices Shar would have to make in following the life path he had elected to take? But in their last encounter, he’d barely said a word.

And Thriss…

How many sleepless nights had they spent lying on their backs, mapping the constellations in Andor’s heavens, interspersing their stargazing with talk about their goals and dreams? His absurd aspirations didn’t sound quite so absurd when she brushed her lips against his ear, whispering words of encouragement. She, more the others, had always defended his choices, even when those choices were made at her expense. After everything they’d been through together, after he’d opened himself to her incandescent spirit and saw his own yearning for a better future reflected back at him…How was it that she, of all people, could come to him making that final desperate appeal as he was about to board Defiant? Oh, Thriss…

The shuddering transport groaned to a halt. Shar sprang through the barriers and ran up the steps to where the Avaril’s crew prepped for launch, Defiantonce again nestled inside its cavernous bay. Hoards of Yrythny shuttled storage lockers of supplies into exterior hatches; officers with electronic tablets ran through pre-launch checklists. Shar surveyed the crowded platform until he found his own crew. Dr. Bashir was giving last-minute instructions to Ensign Juarez, who would stay behind as medic for Lieutenant Dax’s team. Spotting his commanding officers engrossed in conversation, Shar worked his way over to them. He assumed a position at Vaughn’s elbow, waiting for his turn.

“Transmit on subspace channel delta—” Vaughn was saying. Ezri’s brow furrowed. “Delta? That requires security encryption.”

“Right. I want our communications kept private, just to be on the safe side.”

“All right,” Dax said, and then smiled. “Any last words of encouragement?”

“Yes. Try not to start a war this time.”

“Very funny. I’m not Curzon, you know.”

“Try to remember that and I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Vaughn surveyed the dwindling activity in the launch bay and said, “I expect we’ll be departing shortly. Has your team finished offloading your supplies?”

Lieutenant Dax threaded her hands behind her back and stood up a little straighter before turning to Shar. “Ensign?” she said in her firmest command tone.

“Yes, sir. An hour ago.”

“Excellent work, Ensign,” Vaughn smiled, placing a hand on Shar’s shoulder. “Since I won’t be here to consult with Lieutenant Dax, feel free to offer any insights you might have gleaned from having a professional politician for a mother.”

Never mind that I’ve spent most of my life trying to avoid being overtly associated withZhavey …“Yes, sir.” Shar took a deep breath. “Sir, if you don’t mind—”

“Yes, Ensign?”

Shar fingered the isolinear chip in his hand. “Commander, I realize this is unorthodox, but I have a personal request to make…” His antennae tightened and twitched.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Dax interrupted, “I need to say good-bye to Julian.”

Respectfully, Vaughn waited until Dax was out of earshot to speak. “You were saying, Ensign.”

“When you transmit your weekly report to Colonel Kira, would it be possible to attach a personal letter to my bondmates?”

Vaughn smiled. “Of course, Shar,” he said gently. holding out his hand to accept Shar’s chip. “Though I can’t guarantee that the report will go out on schedule, I’ll make a point of adding your message to the data stream. Rest easy, Ensign.”

“Thank you, sir,” Shar said, flushed with gratitude. “And good luck.”

As he walked away to look for Nog, Shar spotted exhausted Ensigns Senkowski and Permenter and knew his friend would be close at hand. Neither officer had been far from the Defiantsince the Avarildocked. Earlier this morning, Shar had observed Permenter curled up on a storage locker, snoring. He turned a corner around stacked cargo canisters and as he suspected, found the chief engineer speaking animatedly. Enthused about the task at hand, Nog didn’t notice that both ensigns stared at the padds they held, their bloodshot eyes looking like they were propped open with toothpicks.

“—and make sure that the cables we’re running down the new EPS conduits are free of irregularities. The shield augmentation might destabilize if—Shar!” Nog exclaimed. “Want to hitchhike to the Consortium with my engineering crew? Lieutenant Dax won’t care.”

“You know how clumsy I am with a hyperspanner. I’d probably couple a flat ring to a trisk wire.” Shar recalled more than a few near-misses during the Core repairs back at DS9.

“Hey! That was almost a joke. Not quite ready for stand-up at Vic’s, but you’re coming along nicely.”

“Stand-up?”

“Never mind.”

Shar had been gradually assimilating his shipmates’ sense of humor on this trip. They tended to sprinkle humor into almost every conversation. He supposed that with practice, it would eventually come naturally to him.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Nog said. “Hey, Tlaral! Come over here.” He waved her in their direction.

A Yrythny was bent over a communications unit, using a microlaser to fuse the last array component in place. She lifted her eye shield. “I’m busy!” Tlaral shouted.

“I want you to meet my friend and shipmate, Ensign ch’Thane,” Nog shouted.

Tlaral nodded politely, dropped the eye-shield and resumed her work.

Nog whispered, “She was one of the ones who beamed aboard to help us after we tripped the web weapon. If I could find a way to get Commander Vaughn to let me invite her to stay with the Defiantpermanently, I would. She’s a whiz with the cano pliers—and I’ve never seen an engineer who could diagnose a circuit board faster. Except maybe my father.”

“Is she going with you?” Shar asked, wondering if the glow in Nog’s face indicated that he might find true love, or at least serious infatuation, on this journey.

“Her husband—they call them consorts here—is a bigwig in the government. He’s going to be on board, too. He’s like the science minister or something? Mutters a lot.”

“M’Yeoh. Yes, I’ve met him. Why is he going with you?”

“We need a senior government official in order to be able to trade at the Consortium. He was the only one who didn’t need to be here for Ezri’s gig.”

Shar knit his brow quizzically. “Gig?”

“We need to go to Vic’s more when we get back, Shar. You’ll pick up the lingo in no time. You need to get into the groove.”

Shar felt confident he could live a fulfilling life without knowing what a “groove” was, let alone getting into one.

The Avarilhad been gone from Luthia for less than a day when the Yrythny General Assembly summoned Ezri to appear before them. She shouldn’t have been surprised—they’d been anxious from the beginning.

Vaughn had only just launched when a messenger appeared with her nonnegotiable schedule, loaded with committee meetings from breakfast to bedtime. Having only a cursory knowledge of the Yrythny, she hardly had enough information yet to make any substantive pronouncements as to the merits of each case. She had wasted no time in assigning the entire away team to research while she’d locked herself into the makeshift office space provided her by the government. After a few minutes standing on her head (which seemed to settle her nerves) she had begun mapping out strategy, searching Curzon’s memories for any relevant experiences he might have had. What she concluded was that whenever circumstances hurtled Curzon into the unknown, he was phenomenally gifted at faking it. Some help you are, Old Man.