Kahless - Michael Jan Friedman [72]
“With who?” asked Kahless.
Adjur scowled. “The one who came to me was a Klingon named Muuda. He’s a merchant of some sort.”
“Tell me more,” the clone advised him.
Adjur’s scowl deepened. “Muuda said he represented a conspiracy to overthrow Gowron, and to replace him with someone else. But he never said who the other conspirators were or who they proposed as council leader.”
“And you didn’t care enough to ask?” Worf prodded.
The armory worker shrugged. “What difference would it have made to me? Besides, Muuda was willing to offer me latinum in exchange for my cooperation. One in my position does not often get such an offer.”
“Who else accepted this offer?” asked Kahless.
Adjur went silent. “No one,” he said.
Based on Godar’s comments, they suspected otherwise. This was their chance to have the suspicion corroborated.
“A lie,” snarled the clone, tightening his grasp on the Klingon’s tunic. “Tell me the truth, son of Restagh, or I’ll see to it you never walk the same way again.”
Adjur swallowed. “His name is Najuk, son of Noj. We made the deal with Muuda together. Najuk got one bomb and I got another.”
Picard nodded. Godar had been correct. Besides, he recalled seeing two separate explosions at the academy.
Kahless pulled the armory worker’s face closer to his own. “Listen carefully,” he rasped. “I should turn you in for what you’ve done-but I won’t, if you continue to help me. I want to know how to find this Muuda.
Adjur saw he had little choice in the matter. “That goes for all of you?” he asked. “You won’t turn me in?”
“All of us,” Worf confirmed.
That was good enough for Adjur. “He lives on Kerret’raa, just north of the city of Rajahn. He once described the place to me.”
“Anything else we should know?” asked Kurn.
The armory worker thought for a moment. “Yes. You’ll know Muuda at a glance because he has only one arm. He lost the other in a battle with the Romulans twenty years ago.
Kahless made a sound of disgust as he thrust Adjur away from him. “A real patriot, this Muuda. Good. Then we won’t have to twist off his other arm to get some information out of him.”
The armory worker must have thought his ordeal was over. But as the clone turned away from him, Kurn pinned Adjur hard against the wall. Behind his mask, the governor seemed to be smiling.
“If I were you,” he said, “I would pack up and run.
Tonight. Otherwise, you will be krawza food before you know it.”
The Klingon looked confused. “But I told you what you Wanted to know. You said you wouldn’t turn me in.” “And we won’t,” Kurn assured him. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t tell the families of those who were killed.”
Adjur paled. His eyes grew larger than ever. “You wouldn’t,” he moaned.
Worf s brother didn’t answer. He just released the armory worker as if he were some diseased animal. Then he tapped the appropriate keys on his wrist controller.
The next thing the captain knew, they were back on Kurn’s ship, and its master was setting the controls for Kerret’raa.
The Heroic Age Like a man who had discovered how to see for the first time, Kahless opened his eyes. He was standing in a courtyard.
The stones beneath his booted feet were small and gray, deftly cut and fitted together. The walls around him were gray as well, and taller than he had ever imagined walls could be. Even the barriers around Molor’s fortress at Qa’yarin seemed small and frail-looking by comparison.
The doors to the keep here were made made of heavy wood, and bound between sheets of tough, black iron. As Kahless watched, they opened for him. A din of music and laughter poured out, making the courtyard ring.
Curious, he ventured inside.
There was no one in the anteroom to ask him his name or his business there, no one to stop him. Glad of it, he hurried on into the feast hall.
It was huge and imposing, with beams and poles and rafters made of rich, red teqal’ya wood and a flock of exotic birds roosting in the recesses of its high vaulted ceiling. The place was ringed with benches, on which sat a veritable