Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [5]
And then it came: a frisson of recognition. After all these years, he does remember me.
“I believe you,” Spock said, a moment after withdrawing his hand and breaking the mind-touch.
The operative’s eyes opened, and he blinked away a momentary feeling of disorientation as the ambassador stepped away from him. “Then come with me back to the Federation.”
Another shake of Spock’s head. “I regret that I cannot.”
“But you said you believed me.”
“My faith in your sincerity is not the issue.”
“Then what is the issue, other than Romulan politics?”
Spock’s gaze narrowed as though he were beginning to lose patience with a willfully obtuse child. “Federation politics.”
It was the operative’s turn to raise an eyebrow in surprise. “I don’t understand, Mr. Ambassador.”
“The Federation president has just resigned. One of the two contenders to replace him can be charitably described as a political reactionary who wishes to adopt an aggressive posture toward former Dominion War allies. I find it difficult to believe that such a president would support the Unification movement on Romulus.”
The operative needed no further explanation: Spock was clearly talking about Special Emissary Arafel Pagro of Ktar. And given candidate Pagro’s already well-publicized anti-Klingon predilections, it was a safe assumption that he wouldn’t support any peace initiatives on Romulus.
“The results of the special election are not yet completely tabulated,” the operative said. “Governor Bacco of Cestus III may yet emerge as the winner.”
Spock nodded. “In that event, I will consider returning to Earth for a brief meeting with President Bacco and the council. Provided, of course, that Romulan-Reman affairs permit it.”
At a wordless signal from the ambassador, D’Tan and the rest of Spock’s retinue surrounded their leader. “Live long and prosper,” Spock said, holding his right hand aloft in the traditional split-fingered Vulcan salute.
“Peace and long life,” the operative replied, using his left hand to mirror Spock’s ritual gesture.
Then the group spirited the ambassador away, vanishing with him around a darkened turning of the rough-hewn cavern walls.
The operative stood alone in the dim, rocky chamber, listening to the distant echoes of dripping water and his own frustrated sigh. Moving silently, he retraced his steps, recovered his disruptor from where D’Tan had forced him to discard it, and began his lonely ascent back to the cobbled streets of the ira’sihaer, Ki Baratan’s ancient casbah.
He paused to take an afternoon meal in a shabby-looking inn built of gray-and-ocher bricks that appeared as old as time itself. Although his vegetarian order caused the servers to eye him with some suspicion, he was far too preoccupied with mentally preparing his official Starfleet Intelligence report to care.
Following the meal—Romulan cooks, the operative noted, did not seem to have the faintest notion of how to prepare vegetables—he booked himself into a private room on the inn’s relatively secluded third floor. Once he’d settled in and run a tricorder scan for surveillance devices, he discreetly recorded his report, then used the transmitter mounted in his wrist chron to send it as an encrypted “burst” transmission that lasted only a minuscule fraction of a second. The chance that even the much-feared Tal Shiar would intercept it, much less decode it, were infinitesimally small.
Minutes later, he heard raised voices outside the window, at street level. For a moment he wondered if the Romulan authorities had indeed intercepted his transmission.
But one look out the concrete window casement told him that the people shouting on the streets weren’t Tal Shiar, or even Romulan military personnel. A dozen people, all of them apparently civilians, were running from the direction of the Romulan Hall of State. He could hear little coherency in their cries, other than a few general references to death and murder.
Curious, he left his room and descended to the main