Star Trek: The Hand of Kahless (18 page)

“People die on the front steps of hospitals,” Dr. McCoy said. Krenn saw the physician’s hands were folded very tightly in his lap.

Grandisson said pleasantly, “Tom’s always being modest when he doesn’t have to. That’s why I keep him around; I need a conscience.” McCoy tapped a finger on his gold vest chain. Grandisson went on: “I’m not a mathematician, but I know the ratio between a sphere’s diameter and its volume. And I know how much of my money the Federation taxes away every year, trying to fill that bottomless bucket.”

Krenn wondered, if this Human were so powerful, how the Federation managed to take his wealth.

Grandisson was looking directly at Krenn. His eyes were very blue, and very cold. “Captain,” he said, “in Federa-Terra they’re going to tell you that we’ve got to grow in your direction, that if we
don’t
grow we’ll die, and so on; and I’m telling you it’s a bill of goods. We don’t need your space. We don’t need the space we’ve got now. All we need is the Earth. And I speak for almost one billion Human beings when I say that the Earth is all we want.”

“Well, you don’t speak for me, Max,” Dr. McCoy said, and stood up. “You want your goddamn neutral witness, invite those
Constitution
reporters up here.” He turned to Krenn and Akhil. “You officers will kindly excuse my bad manners, but I’ve had my intelligence insulted enough for one day. Good day to you; I hope the rest of your stay here is pleasanter and more productive than this morning has been for me…and if your ship’s doctor should feel like visiting, I’d admire to buy him a bottle of whatever he’s drinking.

“And good day to you, too, Max. I’m gonna go change my grandson Leonard’s diapers now, but I’ll be thinkin’ of you the whole time.” He turned, and walked toward the lifts.

“Oh, come on back, T.J.,” Grandisson said, smiling. McCoy did not break stride. Grandisson’s smile wavered. “
Tom,
come back here.”

McCoy did stop then, and turn. “I’ll see you at the Clinic on Thursday, won’t I, Max?” he said, rather quietly. And then he walked away again.

“McCoy!”
Grandisson shouted, but the Doctor was already out of sight. Grandisson pulled out his communicator. Commodore Blakeslee looked violent and Dr. Landers looked baffled.

“Sal?
Well, get her….
Sal, Tom McCoy’s coming down, and he’s inanother of his moods. You just—no,
listen.
You just make sure he doesn’t talk to any reporters. No,
don’t
have Billy follow him, if he doesn’t do it right off, it’ll blow over. Yes, honey, your job and then some.”

Grandisson looked up; Krenn was looking at him. To have looked at anything else would have been an absurd gesture.

“I have,” Grandisson said, recovering with amazing speed, “a somewhat dramatic conscience.

“But I assure you, Captain, that I, and the Homeworld Movement on whose behalf I speak, are entirely serious and committed. Dr. Landers heads a multi-megacredit corporation that is, right now, developing the technology to make the Earth not only habitable for the many millions who will return, but a self-sufficient paradise for them.”

Akhil said,
“Komerex tel khesterex?”

Grandisson turned, reached to his ear. He took the phone from his pocket and inserted it. “I’m afraid I didn’t—”

Krenn said, “What of the Humans who do not wish to return?”

“Naturally we can’t explain everyone’s motives. But we also cannot take responsibility for those who choose irresponsible paths. A Human not on Earth will be…homeless. As, in a way, they always have been.

“Now, all I ask is that you take this message back to your leaders, along with the ‘official’ one. Will you do that?”

Krenn said, “Which message do you mean, Mr. Grandisson?”

The Human stared, then laughed shortly. “I suppose I have gone on a bit. Tell your people that not all Humans want their territory, and endless rounds of gunboat diplomacy and saber-rattling.”

Krenn had no trouble understanding the idioms. He rather liked them. But he was tired of this meeting.

Grandisson’s
dramatic
was an interesting choice of words, Krenn thought. The stage was effective, the lead performance good, the three Human props adequate…though Krenn wondered about the character of the physician McCoy.

It did not matter. What mattered was whether Krenn and Akhil were supposed to take the presentation at its face value, or find some secret meaning.

It was simpler in the Empire, Krenn thought. One had the
komerex zha:
one was always safe in assuming the other player was enemy, the next move a trap.

Well. He would show the Human a Klingon face. But perhaps not the face he was expecting.

Krenn said, “If you wish, I will take that message. But there is something I ought to tell you. We have a word,
komerex:
your translator has probably told you it means ‘Empire,’ but what it means truly is ‘the structure that grows.’ It has an opposite,
khesterex:
‘the structure that dies.’ We are taught—by those you wish to receive your story—that there are no other cultures than these. And in my years as a Captain, I have seen nothing to indicate that my teaching was wrong. There are only Empires…and
kuve.
” Krenn saw Grandisson’s long jaw go slack; he knew how the Human’s machine had translated the last word. “And this is the change you say you wish to make in yourselves….

“So, yes, Mr. Grandisson, if you wish I will take your message. But I tell you now: there are none Klingon who will believe it.”

Krenn had some vague ideas about what a diplomatic conference might be. None of them prepared him for the reality. He shortly began to doubt that he could have been prepared: there were ideas so new and strange, as the epetai-Khemara had taught him, that they must be shown by example.

There were two days of “opening ceremonies,” during which the delegates showed short dull tapes of their planets and held long dull parties at which everyone pretended to be drunker than they actually were, presumably hoping to catch carelessly dropped information. Krenn did discover that Earth made some excellent black ales, and whenever an “important secret” was tossed in his direction he dutifully caught it, as he was meant to.

After the opening came meetings with political representatives and military ones—Krenn was startled to discover how different the two sorts were, even when they represented the same population. Akhil reported that the scientists were just as isolated from their “colleagues” in the other branches.

Each meeting took half an Earthly hour to begin, with recitations of each present delegate’s credentials for being present, invocations to three Federation religions chosen randomly, and a song. Krenn was certain that he was misunderstanding the anthem’s lyrics. At least, he hoped he was.

The shape of the meeting table was different for every session: now round, now polyhedral, now scalloped, now long and narrow…“Part of the system,” Dr. Tagore said. “Used to be, you could hold up a conference for weeks over the shape of the table.”

No one shot anyone else, at least while Krenn was present.

For all the protocols, the meetings did not seem to be
about
much of anything. Trade was mentioned, but not what might be traded. Peace was a constant topic (“…but there is no peace,” Emanuel Tagore said once, and silenced the room, and departed it with a small strange smile). It was suggested that a true Neutral Zone in space be established.
They could not,
Krenn thought with distasteful irony,
have known just how empty a thought that was.

There seemed to be a huge game going on, with dozens of pieces on an indeterminable number of sides, and most of the board obscured. Krenn did not deny the
komerex zha,
that was not his strategy, but the
komerex zha
was
for
something. Each night, after the long ritual of ending the day’s discussion and an aimless social function, Krenn returned to his hotel room and sank into a warm bath…the Humans
did
know how to build a bath…and wondered what any of it was for.

And if perhaps Maxwell Grandisson III was not such a fool after all.

During the sixth day, or perhaps it was the seventh—Krenn was losing track—a diplomat offered an elaborate plan of exchanging prisoners across the boundary—he kept saying Neutral Zone, of course; Krenn had forgotten whether that plan was a precondition of
this
plan—anyhow, at the recitation of the twenty-sixth Point Governing the Treatment of Federation Prisoners, Krenn stood up from the table, excused himself in Fed-Standard, said in
klingonaase
that he must have time to think, and used all he knew of the Kinshaya language to curse the Humans and their riding animals.

Krenn sat down in a small lounge, expelling the Human servitors and xenophysician sent after him.

Dr. Tagore came in. “The one is well?” he said, then tucked his hands inside his gown and sat a polite distance away. He said, “The one asks the wrong question.”

“Does the one know what will happen,” Krenn said, feeling rage tearing at him, “if this proposal is set before the Imperial Council?
Orion pirates
take hostages for ransom.
Kuve
in desperation take hostages for their lives. And now the Federation shows us more rules than a Vulcan would make, about selling hostages! I will tell you what the Klingon law of hostages is: A dead thing is without value.”

Dr. Tagore said, “Klingons do take prizes. For the Year Games, and the Thought Masters of medicine.”

“Of course,” Krenn said. “How else to supply them?”

“And prizes have a value.”

“This need not be said.” Krenn was puzzled.

“Then might not the sale of prizes be arranged? I do not speak of a universal rule, but only a case for discussion. Either side might refuse the trade, but that is the nature of trade. And the one taken as prize might refuse to be part of a sale…or might refuse to be taken.”

Krenn had an unsettling thought. “Are…many Klingons taken?” He thought about the Human fondness for stunning weapons. And he knew that the Federation kept its criminals in cages, for years, or their lives. The idea made him slightly sick.

“There are not many,” Dr. Tagore said. “But it is a common belief that the Klingons take no living prizes at all.”

“But you know this is not true—you just said—”

“
I
know,” Dr. Tagore said. “A very few know. If more than a very few were to know, then it would not be this one going to Klinzhai, but a thousand warships. And if you were to see the pain of those we take, and keep in the places without memory…”

Dr. Tagore paused, hands to his eyes. Krenn could not react: the little Human seemed huge before him. The Ambassador uncovered his face, and began to speak again, and while his voice was like no Commander’s Krenn had ever heard, still it held him tight.

“It is not the one with his thousand rules who must speak to the Imperial Council, but I, and I must have the right thing to tell them, for while too many are dying for fear’s sake right now, it is nothing compared to those who will die if those fears take their true shape, and if the naked stars see what we have done to one another.”

A clear fluid was running from Dr. Tagore’s eyes.
Tears,
Krenn thought; he vaguely recalled that pain brought them. The Human wiped the fluid away with his sleeve; his gaze did not leave Krenn.

Krenn said, “It is that you do not want the war. You do not want it, even if your people should be certain of the victory. You do not want the war
as a thing.
”

“Yes,” the Human said, and his voice was thick with the fluid but still very strong. “I do not want it, as a thing. And if it comes, I will have no part of it, except to save what peace I may.”

Krenn stared. The other diplomats, and they had been many, made clear that the war stood behind their plans, as a cruiser squadron escorts a convoy of freighters. But this one denied that, and this was the one who went to Klinzhai.

Why would the Federation send one who cared not enough to fight for it?

Unless, Krenn thought, this was the trapped move in the game. Krenn remembered Admiral Kezhke’s strange advice:
You must bring him alive…no matter what you are told.

This was such a little Human, to start a war of a thousand years: but only a little antimatter started a great reaction.

“I don’t…understand,” Krenn said finally.

Dr. Tagore sat down, his eyes no longer running, but red-colored. “That’s all right,” he said. “There’s still a little time.”

The only good thing about the Embassy reception, Krenn thought, was that it was not also a dinner. Those present were free to wander around a large building, starting or avoiding conversations as desired.

It was now common knowledge that the two Klingons understood the Federation language without translators, and discussions tended to sputter and shift as Krenn approached. This made little sense to him. Not only did half the beings present carry translating machines (or have servitors to carry them) but Krenn could not even hear very well. Akhil said it was the thinness of the air.

The air seemed thick enough to Krenn, but not pleasantly so. The Federation beings preferred talking around him than to him, but when he was asked questions, they were the same. Yes, he had been a privateer. No, he had never taken Federation prizes. Yes, he had killed with his hands.
And
his teeth. Krenn thought he should have a tape recorded.

In one of the larger rooms, the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth stood near a fireplace, speaking to a moderately large circle of guests of a dozen miscellaneous races. A Human female, even-featured and light-haired, stood near the Ambassador: Krenn recalled from the first day’s shock wave of introductions that she was the Vulcan’s sole consort. Interested, Krenn went that way, not quite joining the group; no one turned to notice him as the tall Vulcan talked on.

Krenn could not understand any complete sentence of the lecture. The Ambassador’s Federation Standard was Vulcan-flawless, of course, but there was no machine program that could make a Vulcan’s technical conversation intelligible. Krenn supposed the other listeners must all be Thought Masters, or one of the equivalent Federation degrees. Or perhaps they had other reasons for standing in the barrage of words.

Krenn watched the Human female. There seemed to be a tightness in her expression; if it was humor, it was not any sort he had seen. It looked more like distress, but at what? Krenn? No, she was not looking at him. She was not, Krenn saw, looking at anything.

A few of the Vulcan’s words registered on Krenn: something about
chromosomes
and
interspacing.

Krenn withdrew, and wandered from room to room until he found Akhil, who was amusing himself with an electronic pattern-matching toy.

“Where did you get that?” Krenn said.

“There’s a games room upstairs. Want to try this? It helps if you drink something strong.”

“How does that help?”

“You don’t mind losing. Here.”

“Not now. Come with me. I need a Specialist to listen to something.”

They went back to watch the Vulcan Ambassador, and listened until the two Klingons together began to attract the attention Krenn alone had avoided.

“What was he talking about?” Krenn asked Akhil.

“I’m an astronomer, not a geneticist.” There was a hesitation in his voice.

“That still tells me more than I knew. What was he talking about, even generally?”

“Oh, I know more than generally. He’s discussing genetic fusion. Don’t you remember, when we were meeting half the Federation, that son of theirs—seven or eight years old? He’s a fusion, and the Ambassador was describing the process.”

“With his consort present?” Krenn said, astonished and disgusted.

“What? Was she there?” Akhil said, distracted. “He said something really interesting, in with all the technical detail.”

Krenn said, carefully, “Interesting?” He had heard Akhil call off incoming fire as if it concerned him not at all; he had heard the Exec tear a slacking junior officer into raw protein with his voice. But only very rarely had he heard Akhil angry. It was not a loud effect. The sharpest knives are the quietest. And ’Khil was angry now.

“He was saying that the fusion techniques were ‘only recently perfected by Vulcan scientists.’
Recently perfected?
If that gets back to the Imperial Institutes of Research, there are going to be some
tharavul
headed back to Vulcan, Warp 4. Without a ship around them.”

“How can he say that? If he lies—” Krenn thought that, if it should be found that a Vulcan could lie, the
tharavul
would soon be more than just deaf telepathically.

“Lies?” Akhil said, and stopped short; the anger slipped out of his voice. “No. He doesn’t lie. He reports scientific results.” Akhil laughed. “Scientists know some tricks Imperial Intelligence will never master.”

Krenn asked Akhil the way to the Embassy game room, and they separated again. Krenn climbed a curving white staircase, carpeted in black velvet with tiny crystal stars, and turned down the corridor Akhil had indicated. He passed a door, and despite that it was closed and his hearing diminished, he could clearly hear a Human voice within, saying, “…not whether Tagore’s a competent negotiator, we’re not even that far along in the argument. First I want to know if the bastard’s
sane.
”

There was an unintelligible reply.

“I’ll
grant
you that…volunteering for this should be grounds for confinement. But you know his record…all right, sure, but would you send Gandhi to argue Hitler out of…How do we
know
he won’t?”

The rest was lost in a sound of plumbing. Krenn moved on to the room he wanted.

It was dim within, pleasantly so after the Earth-level lighting of the main rooms. Spotlights shone on tables set for several different games; Krenn examined the unfamiliar ones, and sat down at a chessboard with pieces lathe-turned from bright and dark metal.

“Would you wish an opponent, sir?” said a voice behind Krenn. He turned, hand dropping to his weapon. There was a small being a few meters from him, in a spotlit alcove of the room; it had been reading a book. It came forward.

It was only a child, Krenn saw at once. The hair was cut in the Vulcan style, and the ears were unmistakable.

“My parents are downstairs,” the young Vulcan said. “I did not wish to be an annoyance. I will leave.”