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One of the councillors spoke. “And if Fel Pagro should win the accolades of your people and be granted power—what then?” Worf finally placed the voice as belonging to Qolka. “Will they insist upon our becoming as weak as the Federation?”

“No one is proposing that!” This was another councillor, whom Worf did not recognize.

“Pagro is,” Qolka said.

Worf said quickly, “Pagro is not president yet.”

A third councillor, whom Worf recognized instantly, said, “And if he is, Mr. Ambassador? Can you, as representative of the Federation to the empire, guarantee that the Khitomer Accords will not be abrogated?”

Worf turned to the speaker. “I can make no such guarantee, Councillor Kopek, as you well know. None of us may predict the future.” He paused. The comforting lie he told Captain Demitrijian would not work on the High Council. “I will give you my word on this: As long as I am ambassador, the alliance will stand.”

Kopek smiled, and Worf felt as if the temperature in the chamber had dropped. “And we all know that the son of Mogh is a man of his word.”

Qolka snorted. “All that means is that he will resign if the Federation withdraws from the Accords.”

Several other councillors spoke in response, but Worf ignored them. He was more concerned with Kopek.

In exchange for not revealing Kopek’s dishonorable secrets to the High Council, Kopek provided Worf with the prefix codes for the fleet en route to Tezwa. Worf had dealt anonymously with Kopek, disguising himself physically and electronically, but the councillor knew precisely who had blackmailed him.

Worf had kept his word not to reveal Kopek’s despicable actions to the council—or to the public. Not for the first time, he wondered if that had been such a good idea.

“Enough!” At Martok’s interjection, the council grew silent. “I am willing to accept Worf’s assurances.” He gazed with his good eye upon Worf. “For now. But rest assured, Mr. Ambassador, if Pagro does ascend to power, this conversation will be revisited.”

“Of course, Chancellor.”

“Now then, there is other, more important business. You might recall that the Klahb terrorists who took over the embassy claimed that I was your puppet, that the High Council took its orders from the Federation, and that Kahless had been replaced by a Federation hologram.”

“Yes,” Worf said, wondering why Martok was telling him what he already knew.

“Based on your report, as well as that of the rest of your staff, these were assumed to be lies.”

“They are lies.”

Martok hesitated.

Worf closed his eyes. No.

“Summon Emperor Kahless!” Martok cried, and one of the guards ran out of the room.

A moment later, the emperor entered, escorted by the guard. He looked much the same as ever he did: short, stocky, with a crest that was less refined than the crests of most modern Klingons, befitting the era from which he came.

Or, more accurately, the era from which the being he was cloned from came. The person who appeared before Worf on Boreth a decade earlier was a clone of the original Kahless, educated with the knowledge of Kahless from the sacred texts and the oral traditions of the Klingon people, and trumpeted as the prophesied return of the man from whom most Klingons derived their notions of honor, duty, and spirituality. Although the truth of his laboratory-grown nature did come out, many people still embraced the clone as the rightful heir to Kahless’s legacy, and so Worf proposed to then-Chancellor Gowron that he be installed as emperor. Political power in the empire had long since migrated to the High Council, to the point where the office of emperor was dissolved, but Kahless took it now as a spiritual position.

Shortly after the Dominion War ended, Kahless had been instrumental in the fight against Morjod and the restoration of Martok to the chancellorship, after which he disappeared for several months. However, he did eventually return, and had continued in his appointed task as a guide to Klingon honor and