Broken Bow - Diane Carey [33]
“Might not be it at all. For all we know they might have a personal grudge against Klaang.”
“Or ... maybe they want to ruin our chances to make nice with the Klingons, John.”
Archer smiled cannily to reassure him. “I’m not missing that one, Trip, believe me.”
Tucker shifted on his feet. “You were pretty hard on Lady Jane. You never had your own pet Vulcan to kick around before, did you?”
“No, and I mean to be harder on her. She’s about to discover what the term ‘short leash’ means.”
Appreciatively Tucker nodded and bobbed his brows. “Probably smart, now we know for sure she’s been hiding information from us on purpose.”
“She’d better knock it off, too.” Abruptly, Archer turned grim. “She’s my science officer now, not Soval’s patsy. She’ll learn that lesson over the next week if I have to tattoo it on her tongue.”
“Good thing it was you chewing her out instead of me. I’d have punched her in the nose.”
“She’d hit me back,” Archer said. “And she’d probably break my jaw.”
Tucker grinned, though rather drably. “She, uh ... she came on the ship about the same time as all our little troubles started ...” He broached the subject, then let it hang there. He didn’t seem to have quite the conviction for a direct accusation.
Archer accepted what the engineer was saying. The idea wasn’t new to him. He’d be silly to ignore it. “We’ll wait and see. Vulcans are reserved. They don’t converse. She’s just learning about us. As Vulcans go, she’s very young. I get the feeling she’s as much in the middle as we are. She could be just echoing what she’s been taught all her life, and doing what she was told to do. Just a feeling, though.” Archer offered him another smile, a little different from the one before. “Anyway, I won’t ignore your concerns. In the meantime, you organize a landing party. Make T’Pol part of it.”
“Do I have to?”
“It’ll show her which team she’s on. And Hoshi and Reed. And Mayweather’s spent his whole life in space dealing with merchants and travelers. Let’s use what we have and get this done.”
CHAPTER 9
HUMANS WERE GETTING HELP from their version of “future” people—the Vulcans—who had advanced technology to give. Was it so unwise for Silik’s people also to have assistance?
Yet he was troubled and made to feel small by the future beings. Like strangers on the shore, they gave gifts without reasons, asked for trust without substance. Why? If only to play for affection, everyone gave gifts for reasons. Certainly these people had no need of Suliban affection.
Silik stood before the Klingon, Klaang, who was constrained in a medical chair, sitting upright, monitored by the two Suliban physicians. Tubes and devices of bizarre natures were hooked into the Klingon’s body. He was bathed in the blue glow of the temperature light, and lolled with the groggy results of having been thoroughly drugged.
“Where is it?” Silik persisted in the Klingon’s native language. He had asked the question three times before.
“I don’t know.” Klaang responded for the fourth time.
“We’re not going to harm you. Tell me where it is!”
“I don’t know.”
Frustrated, Silik looked at the physicians. “Are you certain he’s telling the truth?”
“Absolutely certain,” one of them answered, and he seemed to believe it.
Silik bent forward toward Klaang. “Did you leave it on your ship? Did you hide it somewhere? Is it on Enterprise?”
Klaang’s enormous head rolled to one side. “I don’t know what you’re looking for.”
As he realized this line of questioning had solidified and would offer no progress, Silik thought about different approaches that might shake the Klingon’s mind.
After contemplating for a moment, he attempted, “What were you doing on Rigel Ten?”
“I was sent to meet someone.”
“Who?”
“A Suliban ... female ... named Sarin.”
At last—the first bit of useful information.
“And what did Sarin give you?”
“Nothing.”
But Silik now had a tidbit upon which the day might turn. From a single name, he had an idea of where to begin.
He turned away from the Klingon and to the physicians charged, “Keep him alive