Star Trek: The Hand of Kahless (21 page)

And still he knew he would have to read it.

Dr. Tagore was casing the decks of cards. “Pleasant rest, Krenn,” he said.

Now Krenn was being ordered out of his office. “It was…a good game, Emanuel.”

“An excellent game, Krenn.
Teskas tal’tai-kleon.
”

Krenn took the lift down to his cabin. He put the book on the bedside table, unfastened his vest and was about to slip out of his tunic when there was a tap at the door. Krenn looked at the communicator panel; the idle lights were on. He went to the door.

Akhil was in the corridor, his portable terminal under his arm. Krenn was about to ask if whatever it was could wait, but the expression on the Exec’s face said it would not. Then Krenn saw that Akhil was wearing, not his usual duty arms, but a heavy disruptor pistol.

“What is it, ’Khil?”

“Not here. Get something to shoot with and come with me.”

“Where’s Mak?” Krenn said, but the suspicion was already rising.

“Mak’s asleep. At least, I hope he is. Now
come.
”

They took the lift aft, down the boom to the cargo hold. The deck was lit only by small directional lights; indicators flickered in the darkness.

Akhil said, “Wait.” He paused by a communicator panel, put a key into the access lock. Krenn held the terminal as Akhil swung the wall panel open, exposing a maze of components. Akhil took a rectangle of green circuit board from his sash, slipped it between two junction blocks. He said, “Now if one of Maktai’s crew takes a look down here, they’ll get noise. It’ll look like normal circuit transients for a little while, but not long. Over here.”

They stopped again at one of the cargo modules, an insulated food box. Akhil took his terminal, opened the black case, and uncoiled the cord of a coding wand. He ran it over the cargo module’s invoice plate. “This is the one.” He stood, gave the terminal to Krenn. “Better read it for yourself.”

Krenn wiped the wand over the code lines, and read the terminal screen.

“Cold-sleep capsules?”
he said, and looked automatically toward the invisible ceiling, the invisible monitors.

“Should be fifty Marines, if this is the only one,” Akhil said. “Instant mutiny. Just thaw and serve.”

“How did you find this?”

“Checking the cargo manifest.” Akhil gave a toneless laugh. “The Feds consider zentaars an intelligent species. I thought it might bother our passenger if a zentaar haunch showed up on his dinner tray…I suppose it’s an honorable debt we owe him, for this.”

“If it’s on the label and manifest, then the Cargo-master has to know,” Krenn said. “Who else?” He counted through his officers.

“Someone’s got to command this instant army.”

“Maktai…”

“Would they trust a lower rank?”

“I haven’t decided who ‘they’ are yet.” He thought of Meth of Imperial Intelligence, with his plastic face.

He thought of Kelly. “But I don’t suppose it matters. Let’s go.”

“Who…?”
said the voice from the other side of the door.

“It’s Krenn, Mak.” He pushed the heavy disruptor inside his sash, out of sight.

Maktai opened the door.
“Parkhest
…”

“Just the way I feel, Mak. We’ve got trouble aboard.”

“The passenger?” Maktai looked at his wall monitor. “There’s no alert.”

“Not yet. Get some clothes on, and come with me. Rapid action.”

“Acting, Captain.”

“And, Mak—light weapons.”

“
Khest
diplomacy.”

Krenn stepped into the cabin, letting the door close, and watched Maktai dress, noting carefully where the Security chief put the small projectile pistol he favored for light work.
If Mak were not Klingon, this would be easier,
Krenn thought. But he could not show Maktai the gun. And he could not order Mak to come unarmed; the one would have known he went to arrest, if not execution, and that must not happen until Krenn knew who else was part of the mutiny.

And it was possible still that they would not have to execute more than a few crewmen, as strong example. It was not necessarily a crime to
consider
mutiny.

Krenn and Maktai met Akhil and Kelly in the lift. Kelly looked confused and sleepy, at Krenn; then she looked at Maktai. Mak gave a faint shake of his head.

Krenn felt his lips pull back, his liver turn to lead.

They arrived in the hold. Akhil went to the cargo module, plugged in a keypad and pressed buttons. Seals cracked, and the thick insulated door swung open; a cloud of white vapor flooded out.

“What in the name of the Nameless Emperor
is
this?” Maktai said, shivering in the wave of cold air.

“See for yourself,” Krenn said, and motioned Maktai and Kelly forward. Akhil brought the deck lights up as they reached the door, and the glowing white fog was blinding. Krenn thought briefly about what Admiral Whitetree would have said, if he were told fifty Klingons had entered his space without even rippling his sensors.

Krenn’s vision cleared, and he looked into the module.

Whitefang and zentaar carcasses stood ranked along the inner walls, impaled on frost-covered rods.

Akhil’s fingers thrust into the base of Krenn’s skull; a shock ran down Krenn’s spine, and he fell forward, carrying Mak and Kelly with him into the freezer. He felt ice burn his face, saw the arc of light from outside sweep down to nothing as the door swung shut.

Maktai crawled from beneath Krenn, reached for the opening, got two fingers on the frame. The door closed regardless. There was a hiss as the gaskets resealed, and then total darkness.

Krenn rolled over. His legs were still paralyzed: they struck a carcass. Maktai said,
“G’dayt, v’kaase,”
in an almost disinterested tone.
Shock,
Krenn thought.

“Freeze it, Mak,” Krenn said. “Freeze the stumps before you bleed out.”

“Right…”

“Kelly, can you reach Mak?”

“He’s got it,” she said.

Krenn felt muscle control returning to his lower body. He realized the floor was sucking heat from him; knew he would freeze to it in a moment. He levered himself up, burning his hands.

“Kelly to Bridge,” she was saying. “Kelly to Security. Kelly to any station, priority call.” A flash of light came from nearby; Kelly had done something to her communicator so the blue-white call light shone bright and steady. “That won’t last long,” she said, “but it might as well be good for something. I can’t call out through this thing.”

Even in the darkness, it was still not much light, and it was cold and pale. Kelly reached inside her tunic, produced a palm-sized object. “I’ve got a light sonic. Will that do any good on the door?”

“We’ll try it,” Krenn said. “Mak, you’ve…” But of course he knew.

“Slug-thrower. You said small weapons.”

“I did.” Krenn drew out the heavy disruptor. Its grip froze to his fingers; he pulled it free, wrapped it in the end of his sash.

“Small?” Maktai said, as Krenn’s pistol caught the light.

Krenn held the gun close to the doorframe, thumbed fire. The blue flash was dazzling, and fragments of plastic erupted; Krenn felt them shower his arms. He examined the target spot. It was disappointing: the insulation had absorbed much of the blast energy. But Krenn had heard metal tear. The sonic would be worthless, but the disruptor would work, if there was enough charge.

And enough heat, and enough air.

“Could you explain,” Maktai said, his voice very tight, “what we’re doing here?”

Krenn tried to do so, shouting to be heard as he cut the door.

Maktai said, “All right,” and there was no condemnation in it; no Klingon would require excuses of a Captain threatened with mutiny. “What does Akhil want, then? It can’t be the ship, not this way.”

“It has to be the ship, or else the passenger,” Krenn said. “And I don’t think it’s the ship, either.”

“Captain, permission to speak?”

“For the duration of the crisis, Kelly.”

“Did the Captain suspect this one from the first?”

“Yes,” Krenn said, and bore down on the disruptor. The cold was in his lungs like death’s own hand now, and only the flash of the disruptor gave any warmth at all.

Maktai’s head rolled to the side. Kelly moved toward him, shook him. Maktai grunted, stirred, then slumped again.

“In his sash, near his pistol,” Krenn said. “He’s got…”

Kelly knew. She had the metal cylinder out, and was tugging Maktai’s tunic open at the collar. She held the agonizer to the communicator’s light, checking the setting, and applied it. Maktai’s limbs twitched.

Krenn said, “I’ll tell you when I need a touch of that.”

As Kelly had warned, the communicator’s battery died shortly. A knife-thin light came in around the doorframe, where Krenn had made his cuts. Kelly began firing her sonic into the frozen meat; the noise was worse than the disruptor on the door, but it seemed to generate a little bit of heat.

After years of darkness Krenn reached the last corner. He struggled to stand; his skin hurt as he moved. He wondered if the blood was frozen in his small surface vessels. He had seen that happen. The flesh went greenish-black, and sloughed away like bark from a dead tree.

Krenn slammed his shoulder against the door. Pain exploded inside him. Frost crashed. The panel did not move.

Maktai got up, wavering, Kelly helping him. The three of them leaned together.

“Action,” Krenn said.

With a tearing crash the door fell out. The Klingons staggered onto the cargo deck. Krenn felt his lungs open up to receive the hot air, tried to control his breathing so his heart would not burst.

The wall communicator had been shot apart. At the lift doors, Maktai hit the call button. The indicator did not light. “He’s locked them off,” he said, hammered the panel with his maimed hand, then looked at the stumps of his fingers and said, “I didn’t even feel that.” He took a step, then leaned against the wall. Ice crystals fell from his shoulders. “The stairway’s around the corner…we’ll have to take the boom corridor forward.”

Krenn said, “That’s two decks up, then the length of the ship,
then
up three more decks to Emanuel’s room.” Ignoring Maktai’s look, Krenn looked back the way they had come. “But there’s a stage right back there.”

“I’ll set the controls,” Kelly said.

“Krenn,” Mak said, “there are only cargo transporters on this level…. Oh,
khest
it, I’m coming.” He took one step, two, thenslumped against the wall again. Krenn knew it wasn’t muscle keeping him up, but pure
klin.

“You’re no use to me as you are,” Krenn said, “and less use dead.”

Mak slid down to the deck. He wrapped the fingers of his good hand around the other wrist; it might have been to slow the bleeding once his blood thawed, but Krenn saw Maktai’s look.
Kahlesste kaase,
it said. Kahless’s Hand.

Krenn and Kelly made for the transporter stage. He had not seen her run since she had come aboard Fencer: it pleased him to know that she still could run.

“Your arm,”
he said then, because it hung like a dead thing nailed to her body.

“My shoulder froze,” she said, and Krenn knew it was literal truth; she was metal there, within. He remembered the feel of the pistol butt in his hand, for only an instant.

There was not enough pain in Akhil’s body to pay for all of this.

They reached the transporter, a flat plane of rhomboidal segments. Krenn could not remember the scramble rate for living things sent by the less finely tuned cargo units, and was glad of the lapse. “Starboard stage, Pod Deck 4,” he said.

“Acting.” She worked the controls one-handed with an ease that was more than manual dexterity: Krenn suddenly realized that he had not known she even knew the transport routines. He supposed those in the Unassigned pool must master as many skills as possible, to more often get out of the pool and on a ship.

She would not be going back to the pool after this cruise, Krenn thought.

“Energizing,” she said, and pushed the levers. Krenn held dead still; it couldn’t hurt.

He turned golden and vanished.

Krenn flickered in on the disc of the passenger transporter: Deck 4 Starboard, the room sign said. He still hurt in all the same places, and now he had a headache, but a scramble error never left the victim able to notice his problem.

The corridor was empty, its far end, with the portside transporter, just out of sight around the curve. One door along the forward wall was open, and Earth-bright light spilled out. Krenn moved to the open door. No sound came from within.

He might, he knew, be a long time too late. But
Fencer
was still his. He went through the door.

The outer room was empty. Dr. Tagore’s game grid was in pieces on the table, shattered by a disruptor bolt. A book lay on the floor, by an overturned chair;
The Innocents Abroad,
its cover said. The door to the inner room had been burned open.