Текст книги "Catalyst of Sorrows "

Автор книги: Margaret Bonanno

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Was this, too, an outcome of the Gnawing? Had the Sundered begun as a communal entity, with everything shared equally, or had they brought the concept of the Old Families with them from Vulcan? And with half their number gone, did the wealth shift to the survivors? Did they, anticipating a future Gnawing, build shields and fences of class and caste around their possessions, so that even if they died, their offspring would be safe?

Lost to the mists of time and revisionist history. No way of knowing in the here and now.

In the event, Koval and Cretak had recognized each other, at least by type, before they ever met. Though they came from different sectors, they were of the same caste, and had gone to the same sort of exclusive schools, studied the same subjects, been imbued with the same familial and societal expectations designed to shape them into good little apparatchiks in the service of the Empire, and both had followed form, each in their own way.

Their affair was discreet, and might have led to marriage, but after the initial blush of passion, it had become ordinary, predictable. The first thing to go had been anything resembling real conversation, and now Cretak understood why.

Koval was one kind of Romulan; she was another. He had accepted his role by moving smartly from his caste’s mandatory military duty into a low-level position with intelligence, and slowly climbed the ladder, stepping on hands or necks as necessary, but always carefully. Now that he was halfway up that ladder, it was said behind his back that Koval didn’t so much serve the Tal Shiar as much as it served him.

Most Romulans looked sideways and whispered whenever they said the words Tal Shiar.It could accurately be said that no one, not even the Emperor himself, for whom the organization was named, was safe from them, and there was no Romulan living whose life had not been touched by them, who did not have a relative or sometimes an entire branch of the family gone missing in the night, all their possessions confiscated. Everyone knew of former prisoners who had returned from detention in distant places with hollow eyes, silenced voices, empty souls, looking like nothing so much as survivors of the Gnawing.

To actually want to be a part of that…Cretak shivered, and not only because the room was cold. Koval was one of those who would do anything, to anyone, at any cost, to preserve the status quo and his place in it.

Has he ever been offworld?Cretak wondered, still studying that weak-chinned face. His masters have probably sent him on all sorts of secret missions that I would never know about, even if we wed. What kind of relationship would that be?

His breathing was far too regular to be natural. Was he watching her under his eyelids? Difficult to tell. His eyes were so small, so hidden behind over-large eyelids and prominent brow ridges that it was hard to tell what he was looking at even when he was awake, something his employers no doubt cherished in him.

Cretak had been to other worlds in Pardek’s train. Those outside the Empire assumed that Romulans only interacted with Romulans, that all their worlds were the same, but nothing could be further from the truth. The Empire might not have the multiplicity of species that comprised the Federation, but there were wide variations in race, language, culture, technology. Ironically, the homeworld, ruled by suspicion and the assumption that everyone was watching everyone else, was backward in comparison to some. It was hard to be innovative when you were always being monitored, hard to keep the machinery repaired when the budget went first to the military.

The constant state of war, with others and with the paranoia within themselves, was to blame. Even a simple letter to a friend, a stray remark to a family member, could be read as seditious. Progress does not flourish in an atmosphere of dread. There was so much more they could become, if only they could set aside their fear.

Had Koval ever harbored thoughts like these? Could he see beyond his own nose, or did he truly subscribe to the credo that the Romulans had created the perfect state and simply look no farther?

Cretak was not looking at him now, but at the view beyond the gauzy curtains. It was the cold season, the trees bare, the sky as gray as the city they had left behind. They were staying at one of his family’s houses, a grand old multi-roomed estate complete with servants in one of the better suburbs. Still, grand as it was, it was cold.

Sensing that her attention was no longer focused on him, Koval at last opened his eyes.

“You’re pensive,” he said.

“I was thinking of futility,” she answered.

“A suitable topic for a winter’s morning. It must be the weather. I will have one of the servants build a fire. That should perk you up.”

“Do you know how many we could feed and clothe and educate if we weren’t always at war?” Cretak said with sudden passion, ignoring his desultory attempts to placate her, sitting up abruptly but keeping the coverlet wrapped around herself, and not only against the cold.

“Why would we want to do that?” Koval wondered indolently, suppressing a yawn. “They’d only breed that much faster.” He stretched and seemed about to reach out for her, but changed his mind.

Was he always this shallow?Cretak wondered. Why have I only now noticed that, too?She rose from the bed, her back to him, and began to dress.

“Where are you going?” Koval asked, suppressing a second yawn.

“Away” was all she said, terminating the relationship with no more fanfare than that.

As if she could ever truly have gotten away, she thought ruefully a lifetime later. For all the millions of them streaming through the streets of the Capital, they of the blood could not avoid bumping elbows, and more than once had she felt Koval’s eyes on her in public places. Should she have remained in his bed a little longer, to learn a little more of him? All she really knew was that she did not trust him, and that is far too little to know about Koval!

“I am no medical expert, Admiral,” Tuvok said gravely, studying the locket Uhura had given him, “but it is my understanding that it is not unusual for illnesses once believed eradicated to recur decades, even centuries later. However, with the exception of Rigelian fever, I know of no such organism that crosses human/vulcanoid bloodlines. Nor am I aware of any disease which kills everyone who contracts it.”

“And if you were thinking like a spy…” Uhura suggested, letting him finish the thought.

“One logical explanation might be that this disease had been deliberately created. But by whom, and why?”

“Exactly what it’s our job to find out. For security reasons, I’d like you to deliver this to Dr. Crusher personally. Then have a chat with our little friend.”

Tuvok studied the locket gravely. “ ‘Security reasons,’ Admiral? Even on the grounds of the Academy?”

Uhura made a wry face. “Yes, I know. It’s made it all the way from Ki Baratan to here untampered with, but I can’t help thinking, now that it’s my responsibility…”

“Understood,” Tuvok said.

Chapter 4

“This is not intended to be a formal interrogation,” Tuvok began. “Merely an attempt to establish the veracity of the information you have given us.”

“Of course,” Zetha said in a tone which suggested she believed just the opposite. The tone was not lost on Tuvok.

The disciplines of Kolinahr,even unfinished as Tuvok’s had been, left resonances. While all Vulcans were touch telepaths, he had learned to augment his innate skills to such a degree that often touch was not needed. In addition, his years among humans had instructed him in the nuances of body language. The angle of a head, the tension in a spine, the nervousness of a gesture, a dilation or contraction of the pupils, changes in respiration, pulse, body heat, all told their tales. The ability to read them was a vital part of his armamentarium as scientist, security officer and, where necessary, interrogator.

Feral child,was his first thought, watching Zetha once more through the mirror wall. If she was in fact a trained intelligence operative, she was relatively inexperienced. Or very, very good.

The room Uhura had consigned to her was windowless and secured from the outside but, in all other respects, as comfortable and well-appointed as an officer’s billet aboarda starship, complete with a sleeping alcove, a replicator, sanitary facilities, a library computer, even a wardrobe containing several changes of clothing in the correct size.

Tuvok noted, however, that having satisfied her hunger with several trips to the replicator, Zetha seemed content to leave the other amenities untouched, and to wait until someone told her what to do next, however long that might take. In the meantime, she had curled up in one of the overstuffed chairs with her feet tucked under her, and was devouring matter of a different sort, running several information programs on the computer simultaneously.

No doubt, Tuvok thought, she realized that everything she was reading could be monitored, and attempts to access sensitive materials would be blocked. His supposition was confirmed when, seeing him in the doorway, Zetha sat up and put her feet on the floor like a child interrupted at her homework, but made no attempt to hide what was on the screen. Tuvok heard the drone of a basic Romulan/Standard language program in the background.

“A wise choice,” he commended her in Romulan. “Learning our language will facilitate your time with us.”

“You’re a Vulcan,” she responded by not responding. “How do I silence this thing without losing what I’m reading?”

“Computer, mute program,” Tuvok said, and it did.

“ ‘Computer, mute program,’ ” Zetha mimicked him, almost perfectly.

Tuvok watched her process a multitude of impressions, not least of which was the surprise of meeting her first Vulcan, without any overt reaction, though he detected an increase in her pulse and respiration.

“I am Tuvok,” he said. “Admiral Uhura has asked me to make certain you are comfortable, and to speak with you.”

“Tuvok,” Zetha acknowledged, glancing at his insignia. “You are less than an admiral.”

“My rank is lieutenant,” he acknowledged. “You are observant.”

She shrugged.

“Shall we begin?”

She shrugged again. He activated the universal translator and the recorder.

“Zetha,” she said, before he could ask. “Born in Ki Baratan, or so I am told.”

Tuvok’s eyebrow rose. “You do not know for certain? There is no record of your birth?”

“None that I am aware of. So I can’t tell you how old I am, either.”

If Tuvok found the answers unexpected, he gave no sign. “Known relatives?”

“Didn’t I just answer that?” she said impatiently, and Tuvok noted a tension in her muscles, a barely controlled hostility. “No family name means no family. If what I know about Vulcans is true, you should understand that.”

Bravado, Tuvok noted. Hiding what? He sat back in his chair and softened his approach. “Perhaps you should tell me what you know about Vulcans,” he said, as if he were addressing one of his daughters.

“I’ve heard things,” she said diffidently. “Rumors. We of the Sundered talk of our distant siblings often, even though you choose not to acknowledge us.”

It was at this point that Tuvok began to wonder who was interrogating whom, and he knew he would get no further on that topic.

“How were you raised, then, if you have no family?”

“What’s the first thing you remember?” Tahir used to ask her, whispering in the dark while they waited for a contact who might or might not show up.

“A voice,” she would say. “Screaming at me. Or, no, the first thing I remember is the hands.”

“Hands—?” he would prompt her, his breath warm on her face, his own hand brushing her cheek.

“Yes. Grabbing me by the hair. Then the voice…”

The feeling of her hair being pulled out by the roots, to the accompaniment of shrieks, her own and those of the creature doing the pulling. “I’ll snatch you bald-headed! Ruined my life, demon spawn!”

Slam! The eye-smarting pulling stopped, if only because the claw-like hands had released her and flung her against the wall. She skidded on the slick tile floor, trying for purchase, to gain her feet and run. Not far; she knew from past experience that the door was locked. There must be earlier memories, then, interchangeable with this one.

Smack! The impact of an open hand against her jaw. She hadn’t seen it coming, so at least had not clenched with fear. No teeth chipped this time. She dropped and rolled, barely clear of the boot-toed feet kicking at her shins. But she’d forgotten about the ugly divan in the middle of the room, and found her small body trapped against it; it was too low for her to crawl under it. The kicks came faster then, striking anywhere soft. Zetha curled into a ball, feeling the blows against her ribs, her spine, knowing there would be fresh bruises over the old ones, the familiar ache in every muscle that by now seemed more normal than not.

“Get up!” the woman said at last, breathless from the effort. “On your feet and out of my sight!”

Mother, grandmother, caretaker? Old, young? Was she even Romulan? Or was it she, not the absent paternal parent, who had polluted the “pure” bloodline with her alien genes? Try as she might, Zetha could never see the face, only the clawing, hurting hands and the tiny booted feet. The voice might have been Romulan, might not; the accent was colonial pretending to be citified. But who or what she was or had been, no knowing. Because a time came when the screaming stopped, and the hands and little booted feet went away.

After that, what seemed a very long time when it was dark and I was hungry,Zetha thought. It was probably only a single night, but to a child it would seem longer. Two women in healers’ uniforms came and took me away. I didn’t know if the one with the claws and the little booted feet had abandoned me or if someone had reported her. I didn’t know if she was dead or alive, and never cared.

But tell all that to the Vulcan? Never. What was it the Lord used to say? Dazzle them with details. When I think of what I could tell him, about what goes on in back alleys and abandoned buildings and in catacombs deep below ground, of splinter groups and Vulcan runes and mutters of reunification…but no. I never told the Lord. Why should I tell him? Hold back. Make him work for it.

“I was brought up in…a House. I don’t have a better word for it. A place where the unwanted are fed and clothed and trained to do tasks that are considered worthy of them.”

“An orphanage or foster home,” Tuvok suggested. “Run by the state?”

Zetha shrugged. “A place where the unacceptable are housed and taught a trade. A place I was ill suited for. I stayed until I learned all they could teach me about working in a factory or cleaning a rich man’s toilets, then I left.”

“Left?”

“I ran away. Aemetha took me in.”

And leave it there,she told herself, because how I escaped from the House, and who Aemetha is is none of their business. Much less the rest.

“Then Cretak gave me the locket and taught me what to say and sent me across the Outmarches, and now I’m here.”

“Indeed,” Tuvok said, as if that part were inconsequential. “Who is Aemetha?”

Think!Zetha told herself. Is he only plodding through this for the sake of thoroughness, or is there something I’m missing here?The very connection between Cretak and Uhura told her that the Federation’s reach could extend into the Empire as easily as the reverse was true. But could they harm Aemetha? Would they, because of something she might let slip? She’d thought she was on slippery footing with the Lord, but this was different.

“My godmother,” she said with her usual diffidence, hoping Tuvok would consider it insignificant. But she used a word that was common to both their languages, which meant more than merely “godmother,” implying teacher, guardian, surrogate parent, and Tuvok caught the difference.

“Tell me about her.”

Decide!Zetha told herself. The Lord knew everything, and either he acted against Godmother after you were gone or he didn’t. No way of knowing. Surely this Vulcan or his Starfleet cannot have any more control over you than the Lord had.

Dazzle them with details,she thought. She took a deep breath, shifted around in the chair to bring her knees up almost to her chin and clasp her arms around them, and began.

“She taught me how to read. Then she taught me what was worth reading, and how to read between the lines on what wasn’t. She dressed me and fed me, and at the same time taught me how to dress and how not to eat with my fingers…”

“When a people are always at war, child,” the old woman said, not wheezing for a change because she was sitting down for once and not trying to do three things simultaneously, “the war need not ever touch the homeworld to affect every person living there. When a civilization is predicated on the assumption that the best and brightest of every generation must be swept offworld into warbirds flung to the far reaches of its territories, there perhaps to perish, when a world’s best resources, be they in manpower, technology, or simply the expectation that the best foodstuffs, the best boots, the finest-wrought metals and strongest fabrics and even the optimum works of art and music and literature are relegated to the military, what is left for those downworld?”

“I don’t know,” Zetha said when the old woman finally paused for breath.

“Scraps, that’s what! Scraps and tatters and making do. Schools that teach children to chant and salute and march about smartly, but not to read and reason and appreciate the finer things. But why am I telling you what you already know?”

Zetha shrugged. “Because I’m here. And because you know I won’t betray you to the Tal Shiar.”

“Child!Don’t ever say those words, not even in jest. You really don’t know what you’re saying.”

You’d be surprised at what I know, Godmother!Zetha had thought at the time, but let it go. Her most pleasant memories were here in this crumbling room, her belly full with whatever she and the other scroungers, some of them huddled and snuffling in the corners, had managed to “organize” that day, a few bits of scrap wood in the ornate but crack-flued enameled stove a hedge against the chill and damp outside. The villa was ancient and had no central heating. It stood for the very things Aemetha talked about—an Empire which could conquer distant worlds but didn’t care to keep all of its citizens warm.

Aemetha was old and talked about the past. Tahir, Zetha’s fellow scrounger, talked about the future, a future he was not clear about, yet knew somehow would be better than the present. And Aemetha remembered better times, so perhaps it was possible. But Zetha, caught between the two, could only deal with the now.

If anyone had told her this would be the last night she would spend listening to Aemetha’s stories, she’d have shrugged and feigned indifference. No one, not even she, would know what she was feeling inside.

“Godmother?” she’d called out that morning, sunlight over her shoulder, bracing the creaky outer door with her back so it wouldn’t slam. Her arms were busy with a box that needed to be held level so as not to damage its contents. “I’m back!”

“Rag manners!” someone chided from three rooms away, barely audible. “In the salon, child. The civilized don’t shout.”

“Whatever you say,” Zetha muttered, finding the old woman sorting hand-me-down clothes for her foundlings as usual. There were several of the littlest ones gathered around her, keeping quiet and waiting their turn in Aemetha’s presence, far different from their usual fidgeting and squabbling and rolling about in the gutters biting and scratching, fighting over everything.

Zetha waited until they had scattered like leaves before the wind, clutching garments that the average Romulan wouldn’t use for dustrags, before she set her treasure down on a rickety side table and let Aemetha open it.

Barter,Zetha thought, is so much more creative than stealing. Stealing is easier, but both, in this time and place, are equally dangerous. I’ll be caught one of these days, and probably disappear. But the satisfaction of seeing old Aemetha’s eyes widen with surprise is worth the risk.

“Kaliajellies! Goodness, child!” Aemetha cried, having threaded her way down the narrow alley between the heaps of castoff garments higher than her head in the dank-walled room. The effort made her wheeze; she pressed one hand against her side where it ached. “I’m not even going to ask where you acquired these! Or how,” she clucked, touching one of the shimmering purplish sweets gently with gnarled but no less sensitive fingers.

“Perhaps better not,” Zetha suggested wryly. The last thing she wanted to do was to get Tahir in trouble. She liked Tahir, and was certain he liked her, and that could have possibilities down the road. Like her, he had no family, which meant he was free to mate where he chose. But what future could be made by two who had no past? She would ask Aemetha’s advice about that later.

Aemetha had counted the jellies and saw that there were two more than the usual allotment per box. She hesitated only a moment before popping one into her mouth. She closed her eyes, savoring every atom of flavor, letting it melt on her tongue and trickle leisurely down her throat, an expression nearly orgasmic on her mapped and storied face.

“Oh, child!” she sighed at last, swallowing the last remnants. “There have been times when I’d have killed for less!”

Zetha helped herself to the other extra one, gulping the treat down with less fervor. Food was food, sustenance to keep one going until the next meal.

“There’s nothing mortal I would kill for,” she remarked, licking her fingers, knowing that both her bad manners and her words would earn one of Aemetha’s cutting looks. They did. She shrugged. “I’ve never been that hungry.”

“Then you’ve never been hungry enough” was Aemetha’s opinion. Her fingers reached for a second jelly, then stopped. She sighed. “Mustn’t. We can give these to Blevas in part payment for mending the roof. Though where we’re to get the tiles…”

“Way ahead of you,” Zetha said, more than a little smugly. “The jellies go to Rexia in exchange for a bolt of good quilted brocade.”

“Stolen, no doubt, from the uhlans’ stores,” Aemetha offered.

Zetha shrugged. “Where she got it is Rexia’s business, as is how.” Rexia, they both knew, had a weakness for officers, though she could be friendly to a uhlan if need be.

“And what are we to do with the brocade thus acquired?” Aemetha wondered, though she had a fair idea.

“I’ve promised that to Metrios in exchange for a partial shipment of roof tiles. His wife wants it for winter jackets for the children. She’ll dye it with blue-bark and turn it inside out so no one will know it’s military-grade, hence stolen. Metrios will deliver the rest of the tiles after I procure him two tickets for the heptathlon semifinals.”

“Which you will acquire how, exactly?”

“You probably don’t want to know that, either.”

Aemetha sighed. “Very well. Let us assume Metrios does deliver the other half-shipment of roof tiles…”

“No need to wait for that,” Zetha assured her. “Blevas has agreed to start working on the roof as soon as the first shipment arrives. With luck, the roof will be finished before the winter rains.”

The roof in question was the roof of Aemetha’s ancestral villa, a great drafty shell of a building which was the only thing her family had left her before having the bad taste to back the wrong side in an old senatorial election and disappear in the small hours of one morning. That Aemetha had been allowed to keep the villa was indicative of how little she or it meant to the Powers That Were.

Aemetha kept to the old religions, and repaid the gods for their beneficence to an old woman without offspring by using her ancestral home as a not quite licit hostel for Ki Baratan’s street urchins. Barter, outright theft, and the odd anonymous donation by the occasional aristocrat with a conscience kept the walls standing and, usually, the children fed. The roof had been another matter, until now.

Aemetha’s eyes were moist, from more than just the gift of kaliajellies. “You do more than you should for me, child!” she said now.

“It’s not for you, it’s for all of us,” Zetha said practically, repacking the jellies to keep them moist. Sentimentality made her nervous. “I have to deliver these.”

“Take something with you,” Aemetha fussed. “I set aside a tunic and some trousers for you. They may be a little large, but they’re almost new…”

She pulled herself to her feet and went searching.

“Here you are. The trousers are decidedly too wide, but that can be amended. And they’ll need washing.”

Zetha examined the tunic thoughtfully, making no mention of a split seam she could mend when the old woman wasn’t looking, and held the trousers up to her waist.

“They’d fit two of you!” the old woman clucked.

“I’ll tie them with the sash you gave me,” Zetha said. “They’re fine. Thank you, Godmother.”

“Grateful even for that trash!” Aemetha sniffed, her nose running more from emotion than the morning’s chill. “You’re too grateful, child. That’s your problem.”

“Grateful to be alive, and no longer beholden to a House, thanks to you,” Zetha said, bundling the clothing under one arm and leaning down to kiss the old one’s furrowed brow. “I have to go now.”

“Be careful!” Aemetha whispered.

“Always,” Zetha said, slipping through the door curtain and away with no more motion than a breeze.

Life is a game,she thought, threading her way through back alleys, avoiding the sunlight (mindful of the Scroungers’ First Law: Never run when you’ve stolen something), a game whose stakes are nothing more than the game, which is life itself.She lived in shadow, blending herself with the crazed stone walls, slipping from light to shadow and back again.

There was so much to do. Stop at an unmarked door, slip a broken datachip under it. The person on the other side would have the matching piece; spliced together they said: You can trust me, and another transaction would be begun.

Or slip a calling card that said “The poet Krinas holds a recitation in the Square today. All are welcome.” It meant “The uhlan on the third watch at the North Gate is a friend.” A different card, “Music canceled on account of rain,” meant “They’ve posted extra guards. Avoid.”

Those who are born between worlds live in the between world. They are as comfortable in this neither/nor as in their own skins, and sometimes even more so. They learn to slip between the cracks of time and space, to be where they are not and not be where they are.

But those who live this way of necessity, who learn by doing, cannot always anticipate the wiles of those who live this way by choice.

Even as she watched, Zetha was being watched. Koval saw her shadow slipping between the shadows, and made note.

“How did you come to be in Cretak’s employ?” Tuvok asked carefully.

“You mean how did a street urchin with no identity come to the attention of someone so important?” Zetha stalled. This was the question she had to answer most carefully, the answer she had been rehearsing since the skipper of the freighter had shown her to a makeshift pallet behind some containers that reeked of dried fish and left her alone—she’d had to find the communal shower and the food dispensers on her own—rehearsing it until it sounded not rehearsed but spontaneous and totally true.

“Godmother had friends. Old family connections despite what had become of her family. There was one rich patron who came every year at the same time and left enough currency to support the entire household through the winter. I never saw his face or learned his name, but he had a beautiful voice.” And have wondered ever since who he was, and whether it was guilt money he left,she thought, confident in her storytelling, because every word, so far, was true.

“Was this patron related to Cretak?” Tuvok’s voice did not change, but some nuance suggested he knew she was stalling.

“How can I know that if I don’t know who he was?” she shot back.

“Then what is his relevance to my question?”

Damn you!Zetha thought, though whether the thought was aimed at Tuvok or at herself, she wasn’t sure.

“Only by way of explaining that Aemetha knew people. She used to tell us stories about the dinners her family gave. Half the senior officers in the Fleet used to attend, she said. She was old enough to remember the time when your people stole our cloaking device.”

“And Cretak?” Tuvok persisted.

Now,Zetha thought. But carefully.

“She intends to run for reelection at the next session. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but it’s common knowledge in Ki Baratan, at least. She will require more aides than she already has, and was looking to train a new one. Aemetha recommended me.”

Tuvok weighed this against what little anyone in the Federation knew about the workings of government and social caste and custom within the Empire. On that basis alone, it was impossible to know for certain if Zetha’s answer was truthful. However, he had noted no change in her pulse or respiration. Again, the veracity of her answers depended on whether she really was what she appeared to be—a rank amateur telling the truth as she understood it—or an operative so skilled she could lie with impunity.

“On what basis did she recommend you?”

“I have an eidetic memory,” she replied, as if it were nothing special.

Cretak handed her the locket. “Any questions?”

Zetha hesitated only a moment. “What else?”

For the first time, Cretak smiled. “Much more. But first…” She took the locket back. “You have to be prepared for this. How good is your memory?”

“Perfect,” Zetha said, her eyes narrowing. She disliked being toyed with, even by someone who could snuff her life out without a thought. Especially by someone who had that much power. “You were testing me.”

“Wouldn’t you, in my place?”

The very thought that she could ever be in Cretak’s place gave Zetha pause.

“I suppose I would.”

“Even so. A perfect memory, you say. You’re overly confident.”