Dark Matters_ Ghost Dance (Book 2) - Christie Golden [59]
"Why did she even bring this to my attention?" Jekri wondered aloud. "Why notify me about this code that she and her team supposedly couldn't break?" Her mind went back to the conversation: "I have before me an encrypted message. I can't even determine who sent it or to whom it was sent. Are you not my chief of decoding?"
An uncomfortable pause. "My entire team has spent the last few hours on this, Chairman. I passed
it along to you in the hopes that you might have an insight that we lacked."
It had made sense at the time, when Jekri trusted Sharibor and had given in to anger and irritation. It made no sense now. It was a violation of regulated procedure, an uncharacteristic lapse on Sharibor's part. And Jekri was willing to bet her life that Sharibor did not permit lapses.
She turned to Verrak, who was attempting to compose himself. "Someone was trying to warn me," she told him. "Someone brought that message to my attention. She would never have told me otherwise."
"Is your unknown ally on the ship or elsewhere?" asked Verrak. "We can try to trace it-"
"There is no point," came Sharibor's voice, dripping scorn. "Whoever it is is too clever, or else it never would have gotten past me."
Jekri whirled. "You will tell me all you know of this, or you will suffer terribly."
Sharibor's face was unrecognizable. Gone was the constant expression of faint anxiety and insecurity. Hatred blazed out of ice-blue eyes, and a faint smile of contempt curled her lip.
All at once Jekri realized she had slipped. She was getting soft, becoming too Vulcan, losing her Romulan edge. She sprang onto Sharibor's body, frantically searching for something she ought to have located the minute Sharibor crumpled to the floor. In her day, it was placed in the sleeve... others preferred it in the boot....
A soft crunching sound made her heart contract. "No," she cried, lunging for Sharibor's mouth and
wrestling it open. "No, curse you, you will not escape me so easily!"
But already the light in Sharibor's angry eyes was fading. The philotostan chip, a piece of equipment as necessary to a member of the Family as the means with which to dispose of the target, had been located inside Sharibor's mouth. The poison acted quickly, too quickly for Jekri to intervene.
She shook the corpse angrily, cursing. They needed the information housed inside Sharibor's skull. Who was her contact? Who had sent this message? Who else had received it? How many others were planning to succeed where Sharibor had failed?
Gently, Verrak's hand closed on her shoulder. "There is nothing to be gleaned from the dead," he said. "We must focus on the living."
He was right, of course, and Jekri knew it. Still, she gazed at the still, dead face of someone she thought she could trust, and wondered how many other faces she knew smiled and showed obedience, feigned friendship or respect or fear, but were merely masks that hid the iciness of murderous intent.
CHAPTER 14
WHEN CHAKOTAY OPENED HIS SLEEPING EYES ONTO THE searingly bright, yellow, desert landscape, he groaned inwardly. This was becoming all too familiar. Where was his true animal teacher, she whom he loved with a special devotion, who was wry and gentle and delicate and so strong that she took his breath away?
"On shore leave, or the spiritual equivalent," came the hateful Q-like voice. "We can't all be on call all the time, you know."
Coyote sat beside a client cactus, lifted his head, and howled. Annoyance rose inside Chakotay.
"Please go away," he said.
"What? I am here for your betterment, Ebenezer, to see that you do not walk the path that Jacob Mar-
ley-whoops, wrong morality play." He pranced a little, huffily, and fixed Chakotay with piercing yellow eyes.
"You are a figment of my imagination. I have no idea why you have been sent to bother me."
Coyote