The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [156]
He paused, letting the words sink in a bit before continuing. “So can we count on you for just one more mission among the Romulans, Commander? And more importantly: Can Earth and the rest of the Coalition count on you?”
“You need me to stay dead,” Trip stated. The idea was very nearly unbearable.
“Only for a while, Commander. A year or two, perhaps. Our most pessimistic experts foresee perhaps five years of Romulan conflict at the very outside.”
Five years of my life, if my life lasts that long, Trip thought grimly. Against the safety of my planet, and everyone I love.
Trip wanted nothing more than to go back to his family. To T’Pol. To his old life aboard Enterprise. To reassure everyone he cared about that he was all right. And to remain for the rest of his days out of the shadows where he now dwelled.
But he also knew that he couldn’t escape his duty to his home planet. His duty to his dead sister, and to the millions of others who had been summarily slain because nobody had seen an alien threat coming out of the clear blue sky until after it was too late.
His duty to all the teeming billions of innocents on Vulcan, on Tellar, on Andoria- and on Earth- who could die just as those slain by the Xindi had died. Just as innumerable Coridanites had been murdered by the Romulans.
If he were to fail to act.
“All right,” Trip said at length.
The spymaster smiled and shook his hand, then placed another data rod squarely in Trip’s palm. “Outstanding, Commander. Here are the mission details, biometrically coded so that only you can read the data. You will, of course, have access to all of the bureau’s resources while you are in our sphere of influence. But you will also, of course, be entirely on your own if you should be captured while operating within Romulan space.”
Trip nodded, feeling as though he had just signed a pact with the devil himself. Maybe he had. But what was his alternative?
“I know the drill, Harris.”
“You’ll be leaving on a civilian transport bound for Vulcan on Thursday morning. Once on Vulcan, you’ll catch a Rigelian freighter for the next leg of your voyage. The details, along with the documents and background you’ll need to support your new undercover identities, are all provided on the data rod.”
Before melting back into the shadows, Harris added, “Make the most of the time between now and your departure date, Commander.”
As he exited the alley and began retracing his steps along Grant Avenue’s fog-slicked sidewalks back toward his hotel, Trip decided that he would do precisely what Harris had suggested. Though maybe not quite in the way he anticipated.
Forty-Nine
Wednesday, March 5, 2155
Candlestick Park, San Francisco
ARCHER DIDNT MUCH LIKE the small dressing room that Nathan Samuels’ people had issued him. Located near the open-air center of the ancient public auditorium, the little chamber had walls constructed of what appeared to be old cinder blocks that had been repainted countless times over the centuries, and the room felt paradoxically cold and drafty in spite of the alleged presence of one of the finest environmental control systems currently available. According to local legend, the entire stadium had always been cold and drafty, even in the dog days of summer nearly two centuries ago when one of the facility’s main uses had been for the exhibition of the now sadly defunct sport of baseball.
The cursor on the padd he’d set down on the dressing room table blinked at him mockingly, as though the device were aware that he was having an extraordinarily difficult time making the final revisions to his speech. He knew, of course, that he should have ceased tinkering with it at least a day or two ago, but he felt insecure enough as a public speaker- in spite of Malcolm’s having sung the praises of his extemporaneous speechifying- to feel a continuous need to edit and revise