The Devil's Heart - Carmen Carter [56]
After throwing off the boxes that covered a large chest, the DaiMon made a great show of fussing with the lock and then rummaging through the jumbled contents.
His hands closed around a large round shape.
“Ah, here it is!”
When Tork turned around with the synthetic gem in his hands, he immediately realized his mistake.
Vulcans did not smile, yet both of these men were smiling broadly. Then Tork saw the Romulan-issue disrupters they were slipping out from behind their cloaks.
Their trap, not mine.
The house in the Old Quarter was still standing after five centuries, proof of the skill of the architect who had designed its massive chambers and sprawling wings. In the beginning it had been grandly furnished, but each succeeding generation had stripped away its treasures room by room to slow the pace of their slide down into poverty.
Eventually, all that remained of past glory and past wealth was the house itself.
Tonight a young warrior strode through the cold, empty halls. Despite the reversal of his family’s fortune, he carried his wiry frame with a strutting arrogance that was the equal of any Klingon on the planet of Kronos. Passing by the foot of a wide spiraling staircase, he ducked down a shadowed corridor that led to the warmth and light of the servant’s hall.
The last servant had left long ago; the old man who waited for him inside was the master of the house. Kruger sat hunched over a low trestle table, too absorbed in his dinner to look up at the sound of the opening door.
“She’s dead,” announced the warrior.
There could be only one “she.”
The old man tore another mouthful of meat from the joint of beast. He chewed. He spat a piece of gristle onto the bare floor.
“Fifty years ago I would have cared.”
Kruger’s grandson sat down at the table, but he did not pluck any food from the platter.
There was little to spare, and he would eat better fare elsewhere at the expense of wealthy sycophants in awe of his ancient lineage. “According to security reports circulating in high Federation circles, she was killed by Orion smugglers.”
“Did you learn this from your cousin?” Kruger spat out the last word with even greater distaste than he had the gristle.
“Grandfather, Ambassador Nedec has access to classified documents, and according to those documents—” “Nedec is a toady to that upstart Gowron,” shouted the old man. “Nedec throws you favors like scraps to a targ. You, who should be .his emperor!”
He threw the chewed bone onto the floor. “After my death, of course.”
“According to those documents,” persisted Kruger’s heir, “the Ferengi were also involved with T’Sara’s death.”
“Meddlesome Vulcan crone! Your father was a fool to talk to her, revealing what should only be known to the Family.”
The young man shouted back into his face.
“You’re the fool!” His impudence won a moment of silence and his grandfather’s undivided attention.
“Don’t you see? She found something, something that both the Orions and the Ferengi wanted. Something that the Enterprise is carrying back to Vulcan.”
“The Pagrashtak?”
“Yes, Grandfather. I think it must be.”
Kruger took a swig from a tankard of ale.
His close-set eyes were slitted in thought. “So, perhaps your father was not so much the fool as I believed.”
“I think not. After all, she kept her word and did not publish the account of Kessec’s disgrace in her texts. Instead, it seems she used the knowledge of his actions to trace the path of the Pagrashtak.”
“Our Pagrashtak,” said Kruger firmly.
“Yes, Grandfather. I will see to that personally.”
Diat Manja wept at the news of T’Sara’s death.
Nearly sixty years had passed since she had last set foot in this room, yet there were reminders of her presence everywhere he looked.
Her textbooks and monographs were scattered throughout his bookshelves, along with bound volumes of their correspondence. She had sat for hours in this carved wood chair beside his desk, leafing through