Beyond the rocks, something was moving.
It was a slow flutter of light and vapor above the water. A colossal humanoid figure dwelled within it, hovering dozens of meters above the center of the cavern’s vast pond. The swirling clouds of multihued mist that surrounded the giant moved like gossamer underwater. A broad vertical column of sunlight, from the opening in the cavern ceiling high overhead, fell upon the ethereal being.
She crawled out of the nook and climbed over the rocks. Her muscles were stiff. At first the luminous titan seemed to take no notice of her; it levitated silently in its shaft of golden radiance, surrounded by the whispers of falling water and the multiple echoes of the vast caves surrounding the pond.
Then it faded for a moment, becoming almost transparent, like a sculpture of smoke losing its shape. Seconds later the entity reincorporated itself, still in the same place but now facing and looking directly at Theriault. The young woman was not afraid; in fact she was mesmerized by the prismatic beauty that floated nearly a kilometer away.
In a halting voice she said, “Hello?”
Its attention fixed upon her, bringing with it a sensation like standing in the merciless glare of the desert sun. Your injuries were deep, he responded telepathically, his psychic voice like a tremor that jumbled all her thoughts into chaos.
“Gently,” was all she could think to say. “Please.”
He spoke in a voice of thunder that shook the stone beneath her feet. “Your mind was not made to hear the voice.”
“No,” she said. “It wasn’t.” She took a few careful steps forward until she reached the edge of the water. Looking directly into his luciferous splendor was painful, so she averted her eyes downward, toward his incandescent but wavering reflection on the pond’s surface. “I’m Vanessa Theriault.”
“I am the Apostate.”
20
T’Prynn sat sequestered in the crimson swelter of her office. Her curved desktop, hewn from a slab of black marble with thin veins of white, was barren except for a wide terminal set to her left, an interface for the computer in front of her, and a set of comm system controls recessed into the desktop on her right.
Normally, a harsh white overhead light shone down upon her chair and desk, but for the past several days she had found its glare too oppressive to tolerate. Instead she had chosen to work in the shadows, keenly aware of the irony that doing so served as a metaphor for her career as an intelligence officer.
In contrast to the dim red spills of light on the walls, her monitor bathed her in a pale greenish glow as it displayed the latest bad news. The Klingon battle cruiser Zin’za had shipped out of port nearly three hours earlier, just after 1300 hours station time. She made some rough calculations and was concerned to note that the Klingons would likely reach Jinoteur at approximately the same time as Quinn and Pennington, who unfortunately had been slow to answer her request for help.
Another matter that was complicating her work was M’Benga’s and Fisher’s pointed inquiries about her medical history. She had tried to placate the two physicians with the release of generalized reports, but they had continued to harass Starfleet for more information. Logs of M’Benga’s communications made it clear to T’Prynn that he was contacting medical personnel with whom she had previously served. He had also paid a visit to Commodore Reyes, an act that had proved sufficient to prompt Reyes to access her records as well. The commodore’s security clearance was even higher than her own, which meant that he very likely knew that T’Prynn had sealed her own records. So far Reyes had not asked her about it, but she did not expect this period of grace to persist for long.
Terminating the investigation into her medical records would not be difficult, but the physicians’ aggressive methods demanded less than subtle responses. If this matter is to be contained, she decided, it must be done in a manner both swift and decisive. She resolved to put an end to it before the doctors exposed her mental infirmity to Reyes and the admiralty. If her superiors learned how profound a psychological affliction Sten’s katra-haunting of her mind represented, they would revoke her security clearances. Even if Starfleet, for its own purposes, spared her the indignity of a court-martial, it would be well within its purview to issue her a dishonorable discharge. I will not end my career in disgrace, she promised herself. I will not be humiliated.
That was a matter for another time, however. More pressing was how to further delay the Zin’za from reaching Jinoteur. Even an hour’s time would be enough to give Quinn and Pennington the advantage of reaching the Sagittarius first. Whether their modifications of the hardware aboard Quinn’s antiquated Mancharan starhopper would be sufficient to deceive the Shedai artillery on the fourth planet’s moons was out of her hands.
She began formulating a plan that would entail tricking the Klingon battle cruiser’s commander into believing that his fellow captains had launched a major attack against a Tholian fleet nearby and that he was being summoned to the fray. It was a thin ruse; T’Prynn thought of a dozen reasons it would fail, but extracting success from hopeless plans was her job.
As she weighed the relative merits of several variations on the deception, her door signal buzzed. A glance at the security image on her monitor showed Anna Sandesjo standing outside her office. The two women had not seen or spoken to each other for a week, since T’Prynn’s sudden exit from Manón’s cabaret.
Sandesjo had left several messages accusing T’Prynn of avoiding her. T’Prynn had seen no point in acknowledging Sandesjo’s claims, because they were true. She was avoiding the disguised Klingon spy; confronting her to deny that she had been avoiding confronting her would have been utterly illogical.
Sandesjo’s furious knocking on the door made it clear she did not feel the same way.
T’Prynn reached toward the intercom’s talk switch, intending to dismiss Sandesjo. She hesitated at the last moment. Her finger hovered over the button as she reconsidered. Then she pressed the switch to open the door. It hissed open, letting in Sandesjo and a blinding flood of white light. The auburn-haired woman stepped clear of the door’s sensor, and the portal slid shut behind her, plunging the office back into ruddy shadows.
Sandesjo stopped a few meters from T’Prynn’s desk and said, “We need to talk.”
“Your timing leaves much to be desired,” T’Prynn said. “This is not an opportune moment to discuss our relationship.”
Flustered, Sandesjo replied, “My motives are professional.”
“Continue,” T’Prynn said.
Sandesjo paced in front of T’Prynn’s desk. “Over the past several weeks, Turag and Lugok have become suspicious,” she said. “They’ve noticed that my reports have become less frequent and less detailed. My recent delay in noting the departure of the Sagittarius”—T’Prynn caught Sandesjo’s fleeting glare of reproach—“made matters worse. My ability to continue functioning as a double agent will be compromised unless you can give me something useful to tell them.”
“Your role as Jetanien’s senior attaché must give you access to all manner of diplomatic secrets.”
Shaking her head, Sandesjo replied, “Imperial Intelligence doesn’t care about diplomatic secrets. They already assume that your politicians and envoys lie as a matter of policy.”
“A reasonable presumption,” T’Prynn conceded. A plan was forming in her thoughts as she listened to Sandesjo go on.