Star Trek: The Original Series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages (92 page)

And he turned and left. Astonished, Arrhae watched him out the door, holding the thing close to her body.

Then she swallowed and hurried away to find a place to hide the cloaker, already composing in her mind her message to McCoy and trying to work out how in the worlds she was to get it to him.

Disruptor fire and phaser fire whined all around her, the deck shook with yet another explosion, and the air stank of burning plastic and scorched metal—and the other smell, the one she had not ever wanted to scent again: blood, Rihannsu and human, shed, mixed, burning. But there was no avoiding it, and the more she had tried to, the more the certainty of this moment had been pursuing her.
Better to get it over with.
She put her hand out behind her for one more phaser to set on overload and throw down that corridor, but no one put one into her hand. She turned to look over her shoulder at him.

He was not there. No one else was, either. No one stood behind her, no one waited to back her up in that charge around the corner and down the last corridor that lay between her and her desire. She was all alone. Her heart beat wildly. Mockingly, a voice said to her,
If I must go alone…
Her own voice.

Her eyes flew open. She saw only darkness.

The terminal on her desk chimed softly, and the sound of it reminded her when and where she was. Ael let out a breath, listened for a moment more to her heart hammering away in her side, and then sat up on her hard couch, pushing the silks away. For a moment she sat there with her fists clenched. Then she got up, made her way to the desk in the darkness, and touched the display.

“Ae.”

“Khre’Riov,” tr’Hrienteh’s voice said,
“I am sorry to wake you, but you insisted.”

“I did, and I am glad you did. Who is it from?”

“One of the go-betweens.”

She sighed. “Send it here, if you would. Then I will come up to the bridge. No point in my seeking more sleep this shift.”

“I can give you something, if you like—”

Ael shook her head. “I would only fret my way through it. Better to save the drugs for when we truly need them.”

“
Very well,
khre’Riov,” The voice was the one tr’Hrienteh used when she was humoring a difficult patient, and Ael had to chuckle at the sound of it, for she had been hearing it a great deal recently.

“I am all right,” she said. “I will be with you shortly.”

“Out,”
tr’Hrienteh said.

Ael sat down behind the desk and waited for the message to display its usual multiple screenful of gibberish. “Analyze,” she said to the computer, “and decrypt.”

Obediently it did so. The message was unusually brief, even by the standards of the communiqués that came from this particular source.

She swallowed. This was it at last, the hinge moment on which everything would ride. Her heartbeat had been slowing, but now it began to speed again.

Ael held very still and looked across her quarters at the chair by the wall and the barely seen shadow that lay across its arms.

“Computer,” she said, “record reply. I will come immediately. Will advise as to transit time. End message. Encrypt.”

And there her voice failed her.

“Send?”
the computer said.

Her mouth was dry. “Send.”

The computer acknowledged the order, but she barely heard it. Ael got up and went to the ’fresher, put herself into it on its shortest cycle, and barely noticed that either. A few minutes later she was uniformed, out of her quarters, and on the way to the bridge.

Tr’Hrienteh was still there, working at the comms board. “I begin to think,” Ael said as she swung down from the lift to where the master surgeon sat, “that you are starting to enjoy this job.”

Tr’Hrienteh looked up at her. “I will enjoy it more profoundly still when my replacement is fully trained,” she said, “but even he has to sleep occasionally. What orders,
khre’Riov?
”

“Get me
Ortisei,
if you would be so kind,” Ael said, sitting down in her command chair. “We shall see if time has brought Captain Gutierrez wisdom.”

A glance at tr’Hrienteh’s expression told Ael what the surgeon thought of that possibility as she made the connection. A second or so later, the front viewscreen lit to show Ael the captain’s center seat, and Gutierrez in it, looking weary. “Captain,” Ael said, “a fair morning to you—assuming that our schedules are still running somewhat in tandem.”

“Somewhat,”
Gutierrez said.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for some time. Is there a comms problem?”

“I will investigate,” Ael said, “for we have had our share of those.” And that at least was true, if not specifically in this case. “Have you spoken to the commodore?”

“I have.”

“That is well,” Ael said, “for I can wait no longer; we must return to RV Trianguli.”

“The commodore,”
Gutierrez said,
“when I spoke to him six hours ago, instructed me to attempt to dissuade you from making such a move right now.”

“You may try, but you will achieve no result you desire, Captain. I am sorry.”

Gutierrez looked at her in silence for a moment.
“That being the case,”
he said then,
“Commodore Danilov has instructed me to accompany you wherever you go. If you would have your navs officer coordinate with mine, we can leave immediately for RV Tri, if you insist on going now, and be there within two standard hours.”

“I do insist,” Ael said.
But how interesting. Either Ddan’ilof has realized that he sent too few ships with
Bloodwing
to enforce any order, or someone in Starfleet or elsewhere has become willing to allow this matter to come to a swifter conclusion. I suppose I should be grateful that for once we agree…but it is unusual…

She glanced at Khiy. “Arrange matters with
Ortisei
’s helm officer immediately,” she said. “And meanwhile, Captain, I thank you for your assistance. Is there anything else needs saying before we go?”

He gave her what for a human was a fairly dry look.
“Don’t do anything cute.”

“Why, Captain, if I understand your idiom correctly, you have nothing to fear. Returning to RV Trianguli is all I desire.”
For the moment…until what waits there has been dealt with. And after that, we will not linger.

“I’m delighted to be able to oblige you,”
Gutierrez said. He glanced at his helm officer.
“Feeding you coordinates now, Commander. If you would pace us at warp seven?”

“So ordered. I thank you, Captain.” She gave him about a finger-joint’s-depth of bow and then glanced sideways at tr’Hrienteh, who killed the connection.

“And now for it,” Ael said, straightening, as the warp drive came on line and Khiy took
Bloodwing
out along the course indicated. “All crew to alert stations. Run the priming checks on the weapons systems but do not bring them up to hot status, not yet. Shields up, and have the cloak ready, but do not under any circumstances implement it until I give the word.”

She glanced around her cramped little bridge and saw everyone bending to their instruments with the familiar looks of concentration, and a little more besides: excitement. It was beginning to stir in her, as well. “Aidoann,” she said, “I have a few things to set in order. I will be in my quarters for a short time, and then down in engineering, if you need me.”

“Yes,
khre’Riov,
” Aidoann said and smiled with that feral little look of eager preparedness that Ael had come to depend on over time. It was very unlike Tafv’s old calm, which had always set in harder the more excited he got.

She sighed.
Very unlike.
And she thought, as she got into the lift,
How strange. This is the first time I have thought of him today. Not so long ago he would have been my first thought after waking.

He is finally beginning to slip away from me.

But is this a bad thing?

In her quarters, Ael moved around, putting away those few things she had taken out of their storage cupboards over the past couple of days’ quiet time—the clumsy cast-ceramic bird figurine Tafv had made as a present for her when he was little, the old hard-copy notebook from her days in the Colleges of the Great Art—and folded away the couch. Then she slipped around to sit at the desk again, and found the terminal’s screen blinking with the notifier herald that indicated another message waiting for her. Apparently it had been waiting long enough that the audio signal had turned itself off.

“Analyze,” she said, “and decrypt.”

The characters on the screen descrambled themselves, leaving her looking at another very short message. It was from Jim.

For once the name did not bring the customary smile to her lips as she read the message. Ael leaned on her elbows, laced her fingers together, leaned her chin on them, and looked at the screen.

It is not too late to change my mind. Though doubtless it would irk poor Gutierrez, despite the fact that we would be following Ddan’ilof’s wishes.

Yet here she could see the commodore’s hand at work, and she did not trust his motives. She trusted Jim’s, but at the same time the captain was subordinate to Ddan’ilof, and had little choice about obeying his orders. Though if the captain agreed with the commodore’s reasons…

After a moment Ael unlaced her fingers and reached out to touch the comms control on the display. But then she stopped herself.

They do not know what I know about Artaleirh…or about
Tyrava.
And I have already told those who are waiting for us that I am on my way.

I cannot do as he asks. And just now, I dare not tell him why. It must wait.

“No reply. Store,” she said.

“Stored.”

Ael stared at the blanked screen for a moment more, and then got up and went out, making for the engine room and one last consultation with tr’Keirianh.

In the dim late-night lighting of the corridor aboard
Gorget,
Arrhae pressed the door signal one more time. She was starting to get impatient, and letting it show for the benefit of any scanner. She was just lifting a fist to bang on the door when it slid open.

Tr’AAnikh stood there in rather charming disarray, barefoot, breeches pulled on hastily, and one of his sleeping silks draped around his torso for modesty’s sake. His eyes widened at the sight of Arrhae. She swept straight past him into his cubbyhole, taking it all in at a glance—in fact, it was hard not to, it was so small: couch-pallet, silks, clothes cupboard, a very minimal ’fresher. As the door shut she turned to face him again, wearing an expression of careful disdain. “I have decided,” Arrhae said, “how I may after all allow you to do me a service as penance for your recent crude behavior.”

“You have? I mean, ah, yes, you have,” tr’AAnikh said, running a hand through his hair as if trying to push it into some kind of order, and failing.

“Yes. Now straighten up and attend me, tr’AAnikh. You have been running documents back and forth several times each day from your mistress’s office to Ambassador Fox’s, I understand.”

“Yes, noble
deihu,
” he said, looking more bemused every moment.

“Very well. It will be morning in a matter of an hour or so aboard their ships. I require you to deliver this package to the ambassador’s office for me, along with whatever else you would normally be taking there on your first errand.”

She thrust the film-wrapped box she had been carrying at him, and tr’AAnikh took it and stared at it. “What is it, noble lady?”

“As if that’s any of your business,” Arrhae said. “Or as if I need to explain myself to such as you. It’s a flask of ale. I was rather abrupt with the poor doctor the other evening—more so than necessary, in the face of what he intended as a courtesy. And good behavior should be reinforced, even when it’s aliens and barbarians evincing it. He has a taste for ale, apparently, and I’ve enough of the stuff in my suite to swim in if I chose. I can easily enough spare him a bottle. So see to it that this comes to him without delay. The ambassador’s assistant will manage it.”

“Uh,” tr’AAnikh said.

“Without delay,”
Arrhae said, her eyes locking with his, “or you’ll smart for it. Your mistress asked me how I wanted you punished for your behavior. I’ve given her no answer yet. If you prove dilatory in this, I’ll think of something with great speed. Now be about it.”

And very, very slightly, as he bowed to her, she winked at him.

The bow got caught for just a fraction of a second, then went deep. “Noble
deihu,
I will attend to it instantly,” tr’AAnikh said.

Arrhae sniffed and swept out of the tiny cabin, hearing behind her, as the door closed, the sound of someone starting very hurriedly to get dressed.