Kahless - Michael Jan Friedman [53]
“Yes,” Kahless agreed. “Something he can hold in his hands. Something tangible. But then, obtaining such proof has been our problem all along.”
“Something tangible,” the governor echoed.
There was silence for a moment. Picard was at a loss as to how to proceed. So were the others, apparently.
Finally, it was Worf who spoke. “If there was a bomb,” he said slowly, still honing the idea in his own mind, “there will be fragments of it in the academy’s wreckage.
And while they are not the sort of proof we are looking for, they may provide us with a way to obtain that proof.”
Kahless’s eyes burned. He nodded. So did Kurn.
Unfortunately, the captain didn’t quite know what Worf was talking about. But he imagined he was about to learn.
The broad, powerful leader of the conspiracy made his way through the hot, swirling mists of the cavern, his only garb a linen loincloth. The mists stank of sulfur and iron and the pungent lichen that grew here, and they were like fire on his skin.
But those who frequented the steambaths of Onaja’bur lived years longer than their peers. Or so it was saidmostly, the conspirator suspected, by the crafty merchants in the town down the hill, which profited greatly from the armies of visitors.
Of course, the conspirator had never put much credence in the tales about the baths. He would never have come here strictly out of concern for his health. Rather, it was the need for a meeting place far from the scrutiny of others that had drawn him here.
Not too long ago, he would have considered conferring with his comrades at the dining hall in Tolar’tu. But clearly, that was no longer an option. When his comrades were discovered there, it had rendered that venue useless to all of them.
Nor would this one be any more useful, were it not for the lack of visitors to the baths at this time of year. After all, they needed their privacy as well as their anonymity.
The conspirator sat and waited, as far from the batterypowered safety globes as possible. They were only vague, blue-white balls of incandescence in the distance. Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait long before he saw a figure emerge from the mists.
It was Lomakh, looking thinner and considerably less distinguished in his loincloth than in his body armor. But then, the conspirator thought, that was probably true of everyone-himself included.
Lomakh inclined his head. “I am glad you could come,” he said, his voice as harsh as ever, even subdued in a whisper.
“Likewise,” said the conspirator. And then, because he was not by nature a very patient individual: “What news do you have?”
His companion sat down beside him. “Good news, most likely.”
“Most likely?” the conspirator echoed.
Lomakh shook his head. “The groundskeeper at the academy, the one we hired to plant the bombs?”
“Yes? What about him?”
“He was killed in the explosion, the idiot. Therefore, we have not been able to corroborate the deaths of our enemies.”
The conspirator cursed. Some little thing was always going wrong. “What of our sources elsewhere on Ogat?”
“Those, at least, seem to confirm that our action was successful. So far as they can tell, Kahless and his friends are no more.”
The conspirator relaxed somewhat-but not completely. “Continue your investigation,” he said, “but keep it discreet. We don’t want to give ourselves away as we did before.”
Lomakh scowled at that. “It was the sheerest coincidence that Kahless spotted us in that dining hall.”
“Of course it was,” he replied, allowing a note of irony to creep into his voice. “I just want to make sure there are no further coincidences.”
As it happened, Fate had been their friend as well as their enemy. After a couple of days of their dining-hall meetings, Lomakh had realized that he and Kardem were being watched, and had arranged for the watcher to be killed by street mercenaries.
But that was the day the watcher’s allies had chosen to show up. In the melee that followed, one of them was revealed as a human-a human called “captain” by a comrade.