“Halt! Drop your weapon.” Something cool and un-yielding pressed forcefully into the small of his back.
The operative released his grip on the weapon, allowing it to clatter to the rough stone floor. A bright light suddenly shone before him, momentarily triggering his nictitating inner eyelids. He caught a glimpse of several humanoid silhouettes standing before him, several meters farther inside the cavern’s depths.
“State your name,” said the voice behind him. It sounded young, almost adolescent. Or perhaps merely frightened?“And state your business here.”
The operative knew that this was the moment of truth, and very possibly the last moment of his life. He faced that prospect with a Vulcan’s ingrained equanimity.
“While on Romulus, I am known as Rukath.”
“Of Leinarrh, in far-off Rarathik,” someone else said, in a stern female voice. “By way of Starfleet Intelligence. Yes, we knew you were coming.”
The operative nodded. “Then you already know my business here. I expected no less.”
He felt the weapon at his back quiver slightly, and he calculated his odds of disarming the man behind him. They weren’t at all good. Nevertheless, the time had come to end the standoff, regardless of the outcome.
“I also bring greetings from Federation starship Alliance.Captain Saavik sends her best regards to the movement. And to the ambassador, of course.”
As the operative had hoped, the mention of the ambassador’s wife prompted one of the silhouettes before him to detach itself from the others and step forward. The tall, lean form spoke in a graveled yet resonant voice that he recognized instantly, even though more than eight decades had passed since he had last heard it.
“Lower your weapon, D’Tan. Rukath is among friends.”
“But how can we be certain this Rukath is a friend? If that’s even his name.”
The figure stepped forward another several paces, and waved an arm in what was obviously a prearranged signal. In response, the light levels diminished, allowing the operative to see the approaching man’s face clearly, as well as the coterie of a half-dozen armed Romulan civilians, an even mix of men and women, who stood vigilantly all around him.
Ambassador Spock.
The tall, conspicuously unarmed figure came to a stop only a meter away, his hands folded in front of his simple hooded pilgrim’s robe as he studied the operative’s face. The operative recalled his only previous meeting with the ambassador, whose saturnine visage was umistakable despite the addition of a great many new lines and wrinkles. He wondered if Spock remembered him as well, after the passage of so many years. Perhaps the minor surgical alterations that had been wrought on his facial structure obscured his identity.
“Your vigilance is an asset to us, D’Tan,” Spock said to the young man with the weapon. “But as Surak teaches us, there can be no progress without risk.”
That evidently got through to the armed man, who withdrew his weapon and backed away. The operative spared a quick glance over his shoulder, nodding toward Spock’s youthful bodyguard in a manner that he hoped would be taken as nonthreatening and reassuring. He noted the other man’s response: a hard scowl and a still-unholstered disruptor.
The operative fixed his gaze once again upon Spock, a man who had achieved great notoriety back on Vulcan—as well as throughout the Federation and beyond—more than a century earlier. How strange,he thought, that one who never even achievedKolinahr now represents all of Vulcan here in this forbidding place—and attempts to bring such radical change to both Vulcan and Romulus.He wondered if Spock would have taken on such a task had he attained the pinnacle of logic that the Kolinahrdisciplines represented.
Would I have been so foolish to have followed him here hadKolinahr not eluded me also?
“Walk with me, please, Rukath,” Spock said, then abruptly turned to stride more deeply into the rough-hewn cavern that stretched beyond the sewer hatch. The operative immediately fell into step beside the ambassador. He heard the crunch of gravel behind him, as Spock’s followers tailed the pair at a respectful distance. If I really were the Tal Shiar or military intelligence infiltrator these people fear that I am, this mission would surely be a suicide run.
“You must forgive D’Tan,” Spock said.
“There is nothing to forgive, Mr. Ambassador. His caution is understandable. The Tal Shiar’s eyes and ears are everywhere.”
“Indeed. And none of us have forgotten Senator Pardek’s betrayal.”
The operative thought he detected a touch of wistfulness in the ambassador’s tone. Though it was a surprising departure from Vulcan stoicism, he could certainly understand it. Though he had studied Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s reports about Romulus—one of which included Spock’s own observation that reuniting the long-sundered Vulcan and Romulan peoples might take decades or even centuries to come to fruition—it was disappointing to think that Spock’s efforts had yielded so little after eleven years of hard, often perilous work.
As though he had surmised the dark turn the operative’s thoughts had taken, Spock came directly to the point: “Tell me, Rukath: Why have you come to Romulus?”
The operative was not surprised to learn that Starfleet Intelligence might not have briefed Spock thoroughly on his reason for visiting Romulus. Or perhaps Spock was testing him, despite his reassurances to D’Tan.
“I bear an offer from the Federation Council,” the operative said.
Though the cavern’s illumination remained dim, the operative could see Spock’s right eyebrow rise. “And the nature of that offer?”
“The council has decided to give its official endorsement to your agenda of Vulcan-Romulan unification. But both the council and the new president will want you to return to Earth to make a formal report first.”
Spock brought their walk to an abrupt halt. His dark eyes flashed with an almost fanatical intensity. The operative wondered what so many years living among Vulcan’s hyperemotional cousins had done to the ambassador’s emotional disciplines. Had he “gone native”?
“My work is here,” Spock said.
The operative raised a hand in a placating gesture. “You would be returned here, Mr. Ambassador, to resume that work as quickly as possible. After you’ve addressed both the council and the president’s office on your progress.”
Spock turned his gaze downward and stared into the middle distance, a deliberative expression on his face. “I see,” he said after a pause. “To avail myself of an Earth idiom, the council evidently wishes me to ‘come in from the cold.’ ”
Thanks to nearly a century of at least intermittent association with humans, the operative was conversant with the idiom Spock had used. “Yes, Mr. Ambassador. And the council will almost certainly place Federation resources at your disposal, at least covertly.”
Spock paused again before responding. “Indeed. That would be a significant change in Federation policy.”
“We live in changing times, Mr. Ambassador.”
“Unquestionably. President Zife’s sudden resignation is but one sign.” Spock clasped his hands before him, steepling his index fingers. “I cannot help but wonder whether the council’s offer is related to Zife’s abrupt departure.”
The operative was impressed by Spock’s knowledge of the political landscape beyond the Romulan Neutral Zone, though he knew it shouldn’t have surprised him; he reminded himself that the ambassador had made more than one brief return to Earth since beginning his work on Romulus.
“I’m afraid all I know about that is what’s been on the newsnets,” the operative said truthfully.
Spock nodded, his expression grave. The operative had no doubt that the ambassador was well acquainted with those same reports.