Silver was the leader of the dissidents of Narobi. Normally a peaceful people, it had been Silver who had felt most strongly that they were capable of so much more than simple peace, and he had been more than accommodating when he had been approaching by Gerrid Thul. Silver, like all his people, was tall and glistening and almost entirely machine. There were some small elements of the mortal left within him. Those were doubtlessly the ones that made him dissatisfied with the Narobi philosophy of peace.
When he spoke, his lips did not move, for the simple reason that he had none. No mouth, for standard food was not a requirement; he was solar powered. No nose, for of what interest was scent. He did, however, have eyes, not so much for sight as it was that the Narobi had discovered other races like to have eyes they could look into when they were talking.
Standing nearby, observing the final preparations, were Gerrid Thul and Zolon Darg. “Everything will be ready, will it not, Kendrow?” asked Thul in that silky voice he had that was half pleasantry, half warning.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, Quite good. We wouldn’t want anything to go wrong, would we?”
“Definitely not, sir.”
There was an observation window in the computer center that opened up onto the grand square. The screen was up and running, once again focused upon the events at the Federation gathering. Many of Thul’s followers who had gathered there were still there, watching the drama unfold that was going to spell the end of the Federation. Thul smiled down at them. His people. His followers. He very much liked the sound of that. And Mendan Abbis would have liked the sound of it, too. The thoughts of his son momentarily saddened him, and he pushed them away. Now was not the time for distractions.
“Darg…” he glanced around. “Have you seen Vara? She seems to have disappeared.”
“No, sir. I have not.”
“See if you can find—”
And suddenly there was a breep that came over Darg’s comm unit. “Yes. Go ahead,” he said brusquely into it.
“Sir! The prisoners are out! We found the cell deactivated! Five guards down!”
Darg looked at Thul in a most accusing, “told you so” manner. “Alert the security force. But do it quietly. We don’t need alarm bells howling, getting everyone upset and also letting the prisoners know that we know they’re out. I’ll be right there.” Then he stabbed an angry finger at Thul. “I told you this would happen! I told you I should have killed them immediately!”
“I simply have endless confidence in you, Darg, that you’ll be able to handle them. In fact, you should thank me. You see…you made a muddle of attending to Calhoun last time you faced him. If I hadn’t found you and…attended to you…you’d be long dead by now. So I’m generously giv-ing you an opportunity to get it right this time. Do not disappoint me, or yourself.”
With an irritated growl, Darg headed out. Thul, meantime, turned back to Kendrow and said calmly, “Don’t slow in your preparations, Kendrow. Timing, after all, is everything.”
At the site of the great Federation assemblage, Admiral Nechayev, in full formal dress, felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and saw Admiral Jellico behind her, with his customary polite-but-pained expression. “Greetings, Admiral,” he said. “I don’t usually see you at such functions, particularly at such crowded ones.”
“I know that, Admiral. But even an office-bound old thing like me likes to get out every now and then. Mingle. That sort of thing.”
“So,” and he folded his arms, “your boy Calhoun staged quite an exit, didn’t he, Alynna?”
“You cooperated admirably, Eddie.”
“Cooperated? He hit me! In the head!”
“He was simply improvising.”
“In the head,” repeated Jellico.
“Oh, well, Eddie, it’s not as if you were using it for anything.”
“You’re a riot, Alynna. We were supposed to stage an argument. Not get physical.”
A slightly tipsy Tellarite bumped into her. He grunted an apology and moved on. She shook her head in annoyance, although she was more irritated with Jellico than the Tellarite. “And how convincing do you think it would have been if you threatened to throw him out of Starfleet after a simple argument. I don’t blame Mac for slugging you. It all serves a higher purpose, Eddie, just remember that.”
“So you say.” He looked around. “Except I don’t see him here. In fact, I don’t see any danger of anything at the moment.”
“That’s why he’s involved, Eddie. To attend to whatever it is we don’t see.”
“And maybe he’s not needed. Maybe there are others who are attending to it just fine.”
She looked at him askance. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” He smiled enigmatically. “Not a thing.”
Rolling her eyes, she said, “Fine, Eddie. Whatever you say. It means nothing. Oh,” and she pointed toward the front of the room. “They’re starting.”
“Starting what?”
“The re-enactment of the Resolution of Non-interference. Come along, Eddie. We’re about to see history.”
XXI.
ALL THOSE YEARS AGO, even after Calhoun had freed her, Vandelia had lived in fear of Darg. For she had heard rumors that Darg had somehow survived the destruction of his headquarters. That he was back in the business, building up his strength, making his connections once more. That he was more powerful and nastier than ever. And that he had never, ever, given up the notion of tracking down Vandelia and the mysterious man who had freed her, and making them both pay. On at least two occasions, Vandelia had narrowly missed him, arriving at a performing spot mere days after Darg had been there.
Vandelia was a brave and fierce woman, as was typical of Orions. But even she had her breaking point. Night after night she would lie awake, listening, wondering whether this would be the night that Darg tracked her down. She had no interest in facing him and teaching him one final lesson, nor did she desire to track him down first so she could put an end to him. For Vandelia had had the most uncanny feeling that she had gotten off quite luckily the first time, and to encounter Darg again would be to tempt fate in a manner that would ultimately rebound to her detriment.
She saw only one way out…and she took it.
Vandelia disappeared…and Vara Syndra was born.
It had not been all that difficult, really. The changes were mostly cosmetic. She hadn’t really been transformed into a Thallonian. Shaving her head, changing the pigmentation of her skin from green to red, all had been fairly simple. Her physicality, however, and the ability to give off waves of sex appeal in the same way that stars gave off light was another matter, however.
For that, she had turned to a supplier of all things exotic, questionable and, for the most part, illegal. His name had been Brace Carmel Mudd, and the first time that she had encountered him, she had felt unclean. Purported to be a “family business,” it had been his name which she had heard bandied about most often when she’d made inquiries as to obtaining Venus drugs. She had managed to track him down and, for a healthy price (not to mention a substantial loss of her self-respect), had obtained the drugs.
The drugs had been around for nearly two centuries, and the core suppliers—whose real names were unknown to all but a handful, Mudd included—had spent much of that time perfecting them. In the old days, their effects had been fairly temporary, and the alterations they made relatively modest. They had simply enhanced those features that the users felt were their strongest. But it had been as much in the mind as in the body.
Not anymore. The Venus drugs of the modern era were far more sophisticated. They had put inches on Vandelia in all the right places, reconfigured her into an absolute sexual magnet. They had even altered the shape of her face, to the point where she was unrecognizable. Mudd had given her a ten-year supply and gone on his way, and Vandelia had used it extremely well. She had gone into Thallonian space, which on the surface of it seemed insane. It was, after all, the native territory of
the one man she never wanted to encounter again. But she had decided to play the concept of hiding in plain sight to the hilt. If Darg was busy checking the far reaches of the galaxy for Vandelia, it would never occur to him to look in his own backyard. And even if he did, he wouldn’t think at all about a sultry Thallonian woman who went by the name of Vara Syndra.
Everything had been going fine…until the drugs had run out prematurely. For Mudd, as it turned out, had not exactly dealt fairly with her. The ten-year supply was, in reality, half that, the rest of it simple colored gelatin. It meant that she had overpaid significantly. It also meant she was in tremendous danger.
It was around then that she had fallen in with Gerrid Thul. Thul had taken an immediate liking to her. He did not know her true name, or even that she was originally an Orion. What he did know, however, was where to obtain the Venus drugs which she now desperately needed as her supply of the real drugs was dwindling to nothing. It became an eminently workable arrangement. She became his full-time aide, generating her considerable sex appeal whenever he needed it, and he kept her in supply of the Venus drugs. It worked out rather nicely.
Nonetheless, she nearly panicked when Zolon Darg came on the scene.
At first she couldn’t believe it was he when Thul “introduced” them, he had become so huge. Then she waited for some glimmer of recognition from him. She had steeled herself for this possibility for many years, but once it arrived, it was everything she could do not to run screaming from the room.
Darg grunted.
That was it. End of encounter. He grunted. Whenever he would see her in the future, it would always be the same terse acknowledgment of her. She couldn’t believe how fortunate she had been; he had no idea who she was. In fact, at one point, he even asked her if she knew of an Orion dancer named Vandelia. It was all she could do not to scream the truth in his face to display her contempt for him. That, however, would not have been a wise move, since he would then have killed her in short order, so she managed to restrain herself.
“Vandelia? Never heard of her,” she had said, wide-eyed, and he never inquired again.
He also never displayed any physical interest in her. For the first weeks after encountering him, she had dreaded the day that Gerrid Thul might tell her that she was required to “entertain” the formidable Zolon Darg. But it had never happened. He wasn’t remotely drawn to her. She couldn’t quite figure out whether she should be relieved or insulted. Ultimately she opted for the former.
Thus had her life gone, hiding in plain sight. Living the life of Vara Syndra, adored by more males than she had ever known. It was artificial, it was a shadow, but at least she was alive and enjoying herself.
But every so often she would think about her dancing…and also about the scarred man who had rescued her back when she was another person entirely…the scarred man who had, amazingly, not immediately succumbed to her charms as an Orion dancing girl, even though the pheromones that she generated (as did all of her kind) should have made her irresistible. She was sure, though, that the Venus drugs enhancing her pheromones would prove irresistible even to Calhoun.
She’d proven right.
She was, for some reason, a little disappointed…
Calhoun, Picard, and Vandelia headed down the corridor as quickly as she could. “Down this way,” she said. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”
“We can’t,” Picard said. “We have to stop Thul’s plan.”
She was about to try and talk them out of it, and then she mentally shrugged. “Yes. You would have to, wouldn’t you?” Calhoun was staring at her. “Well? Any questions, Mac?”
“No,” he said after a moment’s thought. “Shaved the head, retoned the skin, Venus drugs, hid in plain sight. Correct?”
She blinked back her astonishment and then said in the most bored tone she could muster, “Wrong. Completely wrong. Now come on.”
“Where’s the central computer room. He must be programming it from somewhere,” said Picard.
“Up,” she said. “It’s up at the top level. Here,” and she suddenly walked over to a computer station that was built into the wall. She tapped in an identification code and, moments later, a schematic of the sphere appeared on it. “Here it is,” and she pointed out the location.
“Are there laboratory facilities?” asked Picard.
“Yes. Here. Two levels below the top. Why?”
“Because if we don’t manage to stop the initial launch of the virus, and it does get loose, we need to know if there’s some sort of cure for it,” Picard said. “And if he was doing research on it—”
A blaster bolt struck the computer station and smashed it apart.
The three of them whirled, just in time to see a squadron of Thul’s men charging toward them.
Picard and Calhoun immediately fell back, firing as they went, desperately trying to keep their pursuers off balance. Vandelia, who had lifted a blaster from one of the Thallonians who had tried to take them down earlier, was also firing. They picked off several of their pursuers, and the others ducked for cover. “Come on! This way!” shouted Picard, and they bolted down the corridor.
Blasts ricocheted off the walls around them as they ran. One of them struck an overhead pipe, and coolant blasted out, filling up the entire walk-way with thick, white smoke. Vandelia took a deep breath of air before it became impossible to do so, and then she couldn’t see anything. There were forms, shadows ahead of her, and she ran after them. She went around another corner, and then another.
And suddenly she was alone.
She looked around, tried to figure out where she had become separated from Calhoun and Picard. There were no sounds of pursuit; perhaps they had decided to go around another way, she must try to catch up with them. Even so, retracing her steps would not be the best idea. So she decided to keep going forward.
As she did, she mulled over the fact that she could easily have ducked out of the situation. She could have pretended that Calhoun and Picard had just now taken her hostage. The guards that she’d killed were dead, so they weren’t going to talk. The Federation men would certainly have played along so that she wasn’t at risk. She could have kept her life going…
Except it wasn’t her life, not really. It was Vara Syndra’s life, and she realized that she had grown rather tired of her. She missed the woman she was. She wanted Vandelia back. And this was the only way to recapture her.
She saw a figure ahead of her in the mist, turning and looking at her. “Mac!” she called. “Mac! Over here!”
The figure suddenly seemed to stand up, looming large in front of her. Zolon Darg emerged from the mist and looked at her as if seeing her for the very first time.
“Hello, Vandelia,” he said.
Then he killed her.
XXII.
PICARD HAD ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how he had become separated from Calhoun, but there was no time to worry about it at that point. What was of far greater concern were the men who were pursuing him.
He turned quickly, spotted an open lift, and charged toward it. He ducked, weaved, ran as fast as he could. A blast bolt singed his shoulder and he staggered, but he tumbled into the lift, losing his grip on his blaster as he did so. “Level 3A!” he called, which was how he had seen it demarcated on the schematic.
The doors slid closed…but just before they did, a Thallonian leaped the distance and fell into the lift car atop Picard. The car started up.
The Thallonian snarled into Picard’s face, tried to bring his blaster up. Picard gripped his wrist and they struggled furiously as Picard tried to aim it away from himself. The blaster discharged, blasting through the clear backing of the lift that overlooked the dizzying interior of the sphere.
Picard and the Thallonian struggled to their feet, pushing and shoving against one another. The blaster went off again, ricocheting and striking a glancing blow against the Thallonian’s heavily armored back. It wasn’t sufficient to hurt him. It was, however, enough to knock both the Thalloni
an and Picard back and out the gaping hole in the back of the turbolift.
For a moment, there was nothing between Picard and a drop except air, and he was floating in the zero-G environment. Then he snagged the shattered exterior of the lift. It sliced up his hand fiercely, but it held firm.
The Thallonian was less fortunate. He tumbled away from the lift, but he did so in extreme slow motion. He tried to make it back to the lift, looking for all the world as if he were swimming in the air. But he simply drifted backward, faster and faster, heading toward the core of the sphere where the massive cloaking device was.
Picard knew immediately what was going to happen. When he hit the gravimetric center of the sphere, he was going to make a fairly significant splat. And if Picard didn’t manage to haul himself back into safety, he was going to go the same way.
The slicing of his hand was excruciating—it was like massaging broken glass—but Picard had no choice. Setting his jaw determinedly, he dragged himself into the lift, fighting against the zero-G which seemed so buoyant but was, in fact, so deadly. In a moment he was tumbled to the floor, and then looked up as the door opened on the level that he had requested.
He picked up the blaster that he had dropped on the floor of the turbolift and staggered out. His blood-covered palms made it difficult to grip the gun securely, but he had to do the best he could. He looked around desperately and saw signs pointing to the lab. How exceptionally convenient.
He followed them quickly, got to the lab, and just as he arrived, ran into another squadron of guards. They had their weapons out, he was ten feet short of the door to the lab, and they absolutely had him cold.
At that point, Mackenzie Calhoun ran by.
And another. And another still.
“Get him!” the lead attacker shouted, but they had no idea which “him” to get. “And him!” he added, and pointed at Picard.
Several of them indeed fired right at Picard, and he would have been dead if Calhoun had not thrown himself into the blaster’s path. The shot took him down from the back, and Calhoun collapsed into Picard’s arms.