Nezrene, sensing the need to quash dissent and reassert control quickly, offered her thoughts to the twenty-three others who had shared her fate inside the horrid machine. Forming a new SubLink they synchronized their memory-lines. We must show them the truth together, she counseled her comrades. All signaled their agreement by adjusting the hues of their mind-lines to a uniform shade of warm amber. With their shared experience coagulated into a single coherent memory-line, Nezrene opened their private SubLink to the rest of the crew.
This is why we did not destroy the Federation ship, Nezrene explained with calming shades of pale green and blue. Her dulcet tones conveyed sincerity and authority. The other voices in the SubLink fell silent. A general tenor of anxious anticipation preceded the revelation by those who had heard the Voices.
Twenty-four facets showed the same moment from differing perspectives but with only one narrative. Two humans, one wearing a uniform of Starfleet, stood beneath the great machine and were confronted by the second greatest of all the Voices.
“We’re begging you for their freedom,” said the male human.
The Voice asked the female human, “Do you also plead for the Kollotaan’s freedom?”
“Yes,” she said. “Can you return them to their ship?”
“I can,” he said after a brief pause. “And I will.”
Nezrene terminated the memory-share and adopted the bright surety of the leadership caste. Perhaps it is the custom of other species to repay justice with treachery, but it is not our way. They spoke in our defense. That is why we defended them.
Her argument galvanized the crew of the Lanz’t Tholis. Their collective mind-line calmed to a muted golden glow. Harmony and balance were restored. Discipline would prevail. All she had left to dread was their homecoming.
As the ship’s acting commander, it would be her task to inform the Ruling Conclave that the Shedai had awakened—and that they had dispersed to countless worlds across the sector.
Tholia’s true enemy had returned.
Only one path had been offered for the Wanderer’s flight from the First World, one channel through the First Conduit, one route to salvation. Expended by her struggle against the Apostate and his minions, she had accepted it.
She was alone on a desiccated, airless moon. Once geologically active, it was long dead, as was the barren world that held it in gravitational thrall. Two forlorn orbs in the endless darkness, turning and revolving around a fading star, a slow death incarnate.
Behind her a Conduit lay dark and cold, its flawless obsidian surface reflecting glimmers of starlight. Without a power source the Conduit was little more now than sculpture, a mute reminder of powers and glories surrendered to the iniquities of time. Silenced and enfeebled, it would be of no use to the Wanderer. Never again would the Song issue from it; without the infusion of power from the First Conduit, it was naught but a shell, a monument to what might have been.
This star system was one of the most remote of all the Shedai’s possessions. It was quite possibly the most distant node in the Conduit network from the First World, and also from the interstellar nations of Telinaruul that had dared to trespass into the realm of the Shedai. The journey across the desert of space-time, spanning many dozens of light-years, to the nearest linked world would be long and silent.
It did not matter. Strength would return. The Wanderer would fortify her essence by drawing on vast reservoirs of energy hidden in extradimensional folds of space-time. Her recovery would seem slow by the standards of some Telinaruul. For her it would be a brief respite, a momentary regrouping. When it was complete she would begin her passage of the stars.
Despite being one of the most newly formed of the Shedai, she had earned her name and her place among the Serrataal for her particular gift, unique among her kind: the ability to project her consciousness across the deepest reaches of space without a Conduit to guide her transit. With enough time to gather her strength, she could traverse the vast reaches between stars, make planetfall, and recorporealize. Her arrival could occur without warning. A breath from the heavens, a cold whisper, would be her only herald.
She would ford the darkness. World to world, she would seek out the others, the diaspora of the Enumerated. Those loyal to the Maker she would aid and organize. The Apostate’s partisans she would destroy. Cleansing the Shedai of dissident voices would be crucial. Only united would they have the power to expel the Telinaruul from their domain—and subjugate them.
Retribution would not come quickly. But it would come.
Of that the Wanderer was certain.
28
T’Prynn had been awake for more than thirty hours, since the SOS from the Sagittarius had been received by Vanguard Control. It had been a tumultuous period, full of desperate stratagems and expedient measures, and while T’Prynn had not been in the center of it, she had been busy behind the scenes, influencing outcomes.
Three hours had passed since Commodore Reyes had issued General Order 24 against Gamma Tauri IV. Afterward he had withdrawn to his private office and refused visitors, even T’Prynn and Jetanien. She desired to emulate him and retire to her quarters for an extended period, perhaps a few days, to meditate and order her thoughts. It was a luxury that would briefly have to be postponed, however. Duty and circumstance had conspired against her; before she could sequester herself, there was an item of business she needed to address in person.
As she stepped out of the turbolift onto an upper floor of a Stars Landing residential complex, her body felt sapped of vigor. Every step forward was a labor, and despite her robust Vulcan constitution the events of the past day had left her enervated to an unusual degree. She forced herself to press onward with poise and fortitude, banishing her fatigue as just another irrelevant perception.
At the door she hesitated. Procrastination is illogical, she reprimanded herself. This matter must be dealt with in a timely fashion. Failure to act promptly could have significant negative consequences. Her resolve bolstered by a review of the facts, she pressed the door buzzer and waited.
Fifty-four seconds later the door opened. Anna Sandesjo lurked beyond the edge of the doorway, squinting into the white light of the hallway as it crept into her darkened apartment. She was wrapped in a midnight-blue robe of Terran silk tied loosely shut at her waist. Groggy and peeking out from behind tousled locks, she said, “It’s half-past four in the morning, T’Prynn.”
“It is urgent that we speak,” T’Prynn replied. She resisted the urge to enter Sandesjo’s home without invitation. After a few seconds, the semi-somnambulating Klingon in human guise ushered T’Prynn inside. Walking behind her, T’Prynn admired the placid nature scene that had been delicately embroidered on the back of her lover’s robe.
Sandesjo’s hand brushed a control panel on the wall as they entered the living room. Lights flickered on and filled the space with a warm golden ambience. Sandesjo stopped in front of the plush sofa and turned to face T’Prynn. “Is this a social call?” she asked with a wicked grin and sleepy eyes. “You’ll have to work to make up for interrupting my beauty rest.”
“It might be best if you sat down, Anna.”
The stern tone of T’Prynn’s suggestion hardened Sandesjo’s expression. She did as T’Prynn had asked and lowered herself onto the middle of the sofa. “What’s this about?”