Star Trek: Brinkmanship (2 page)

For a moment, Hertome did not move, then he nodded toward their supplies. “An acceptable request,” he said. “Take a new cloth, and be quick about it, Mayazan. Lazy hands serve no purpose.”

“And this one’s purpose is to serve.” Efheny stood up and hurried across to their supplies. Within moments she was back on her knees, head down, furiously rubbing the nutrient gel into the coral of the inferior deck. Beside her, one of her workmates, Corazame Ret Ata-E, began to sing, softly, a tune that had been very popular among the Ata a twin-month ago. Soon the other two deck workers were singing along with her, and Efheny joined in too:

Like the moons that hand by hand traverse the sky,

Like the waves that ebb and flow upon the shore,

These ones know,

These ones know,

There is an order and a purpose for all things.

Eventually Hertome and the other wall worker provided harmonies. By all outward appearances,
they were a happy and productive unit, and no doubt the Fel and Kre work groups sitting above were comforted to hear the simple chant being murmured below them. Usually Efheny was soothed by participating in these songs, but today her stomach turned queasily, and her hands shook as she cleaned. Because she knew that her immediate superior in Maintenance Unit 17 at the Department of the Outside was not Hertome Ter Ata-C but a Federation agent, name unknown. The question now was: Which of them would be first to act on this new information? Which was going to blink first?

•   •   •

It’s the little things that kill,
thought Beverly Crusher, pushing her mug farther across the table, out of reach of René’s questing, vulnerable hands.
The things you don’t notice until they’re hurtling toward you. The tiny things you forget about until all of a sudden they’re critical.

René, thwarted in his mission to take possession of her mug, began to frown. Expertly, Crusher picked up his small cup and put it down in front of him.

“Juice, sweetheart!” she said. Eagerly, the little boy took the cup. He drank thirstily and gave a wide smile that made his mother’s spirits soar.

Across the table of the quarters that they shared on the
Enterprise,
a padd in one hand and his meal forgotten in front of him, her husband sighed deeply.

“Problem?” Crusher said.

“You could say that.”

“What kind?”

“Cardassians,” Jean-Luc Picard said brusquely. He put down the padd, stood up, and crossed the room to use the companel on the desk.

“Ah.” Crusher followed him across the room. “Yes. I can see how that might be a problem.”

The screen on the companel shimmered, and then Admiral Akaar appeared, stern and unyielding. Unconsciously, Crusher reached up to straighten her uniform, before remembering she was off-duty, in her quarters, and dressed for dinner with a two-year-old.

“Captain,”
Akaar said.
“There’s been a little change of plan. Cardassians,”
he added, steely eyed and wry faced.

Crusher heard her husband sigh, just a little. A complication of Cardassians . . . Yes, that would be the collective noun. Picard opened his palm to invite the admiral to elucidate. “Please, go on.”

“They want their people to come along on the mission. When you get to Starbase 66 to pick up the Ferengi and Federation representatives, there’ll be a Cardassian diplomat and her team to pick up too. Negotiator Detrek. If it’s any consolation, she’s very experienced. A democrat too. First appointed during the Rejal administration, and then a favorite of Alon Ghemor. In other words, our kind of Cardassian.”

To Crusher’s eyes, her husband did not look particularly appeased by Detrek’s impeccable credentials as a democrat. “Our preliminary exchanges with the Venetan government have been marked by a distinct frost, sir,” he said. “It might not be wise to add more
people at such a late stage. It could be construed as undue pressure.”

“Or construed as a signal of how seriously not just two but
three
other powers on their borders are taking their current dalliance with the Tzenkethi.”
Akaar sighed.
“I know this will be a tough sell, Jean-Luc, but I have our relations with the Cardassians to think of. As their ambassador is
constantly
reminding us, they are our allies these days. And when he’s not banging that drum, he’s indicated in innumerable ways—stopping short of saying it outright, of course—that his government will take the worst kind of message away from any refusal to allow their people to join in this mission to Venette. Since we’re counting allies pretty much on the fingers of one hand right now, the president has agreed to their request.”
He frowned.
“She said she would throw in a brass band if they asked. So I’m afraid Cardassians are going to be there at the negotiating table, and you and the rest of the team will have to look as if that was the plan all along.”
Akaar’s eyes flicked sideways slightly.
“Is Doctor Crusher there? I’d like to speak to her.”

Picard, quirking up his eyebrows, gestured to Crusher. Quickly, she concealed a sticky bright blue plastic spoon in her pocket, and came into view.

“How can I help, Admiral?”

“Doctor, I’d like you to take Lieutenant Chen’s place on this mission.”

“Excuse me?”

“I know Chen would do a good job, but I want you there. You’ve been to Venette already, am I correct?”

“Well, yes, but a long time ago. I was a
cadet
—” Crusher glanced at Picard, who shrugged his own confusion at the admiral’s request. “Chen’s the first contact specialist, Admiral. She’s been preparing for this mission for several weeks—”

“No,
” said Akaar firmly.
“I want the perspective of someone who has been there before.”

“Of course, Admiral—although my perspective was pretty limited. I was fetching and carrying for senior officers most of the time.”

“I’m sure things will start to come back to you when you’re there, Doctor. Besides, there’s another reason I want you there.”
He leaned toward the screen conspiratorially.
Surely this is a secure channel,
Crusher thought, even as she and Picard mirrored the admiral’s move.

“Another reason?” she said.

“Or, to be more precise, I want a doctor there. This friendship between the Venetans and the Tzenkethi took us completely by surprise, Doctor. And our intelligence networks on Ab-Tzenketh are excellent. So how did we miss this?”

“I don’t see how a doctor can answer that question,” Crusher said. “You’d be better sending Choudhury—or, better still, send a specialist along, someone from Tzenkethi Affairs—”

“My specialist is on his way already. No, I have a particular purpose in mind for you, Doctor. I want to know whether the Tzenkethi are influencing the Venetans biochemically in some way.”

“A biochemical influence?” Crusher was baffled.
“Aggression enhancers? Hallucinogens? Is that the kind of thing you mean?”

“I’ll leave the technicalities to you, Doctor.”

“Is that possible, Beverly?” Picard asked.

“Anything’s possible, Jean-Luc. We know very little about Tzenkethi physiology, and even less about their medical science—”

“And, with your prior experience of the Venetans, you’re the person best placed to judge any differences in their behavior, Doctor. Look around. Compare and contrast with your previous visit. Take tricorder readings—samples if you have to. But find out whether there’s a biomedical reason for the Venetans’ sudden shift toward the Tzenkethi and this new hostility toward us.”

Crusher nodded slowly. She remembered the Venetans as welcoming. Perhaps this idea wasn’t so farfetched. “Very well, Admiral. I’ll do my best.”

“Good. What else? Oh, yes, you’ve still got that Cardassian glinn from the officers’ exchange program, haven’t you, Jean-Luc?”

“Glinn Dygan, yes—”

“Might be time for his moment in the sun. See what help he can be with the Cardassian contingent. All right, that’s it. Keep the reports coming in, Jean-Luc. I’ll be waiting to hear them. Beverly, enjoy revisiting Venette.”

The channel cut off. Crusher exhaled. Beside her, Picard tapped the table with his fingertips—once, twice—and abruptly stopped. He gave no other sign that he was perturbed at having his plans thrown into disarray so late in the day. Crusher wasn’t fooled.

“Well,” he said at length, and calmly, “it seems that our mission to the Venette Convention is now rather more complicated than it was.”

“Complicated by Cardassians, no less.” Crusher perched on the side of the desk. “Do you really think the Venetans will be angered by their involvement?”

Picard leaned back in his chair and rested his hand upon hers. “I think there’s a strong possibility. They’re not well-disposed toward the Federation anyway. To bring the advertised diplomatic teams from the Federation and Ferenginar is one thing. To add representatives from another major power . . . As I said to the admiral—”

“The Venetans could see it as a last-minute attempt to put pressure on them.”

“And without many reasons to take us at our word when we assure them that it’s not.”

Crusher nodded. The Federation had an unfortunate history with the three systems that comprised the Venette Convention. When she had visited the convention, as Beverly Howard, all those years ago, the Venetans had been in the early stages of establishing links with the Federation. All had progressed smoothly. Ten years ago, they had been on the verge of applying for Federation membership. Then the Dominion War had intervened, followed by the horror of the Borg Invasion, and the political destiny of these three small systems had quite simply been forgotten. Until they’d announced their new trading agreement with the Tzenkethi Coalition, that is. Now
the Federation diplomatic service was scrambling to make up the ground lost in a decade. The Venette Convention bordered upon some interesting (not to mention sensitive) spots.

“Chen’s going to be disappointed,” Crusher said.

“I’d better inform her of the change of plans—” Picard started suddenly, and Crusher turned to look behind her.

At the table, René had lost interest in his own drink and had got hold of his mother’s mug. His hands were too small to manage the weight, and the mug was now balancing precariously on the edge of the table. One small push and . . .

. . . Down will go baby, cradle and all.

Crusher crossed the room in a split second, catching the mug midway between table and floor.

“Nice save,” Picard said appreciatively.

“An eye for critical situations,” Crusher said, “and the reflexes to deal with them. Two more reasons why I should come along on this mission.”

•   •   •

“So . . . this friend of yours,” said Bowers.

“Not really a friend,” said Dax. “More a friend of a friend.”

“All right, this passing acquaintance of yours—”

“I wouldn’t even call him a friend of a friend. I mean, Netara dated him . . . 
twice,
maybe? Three times at the very most.”

“All right, so you had a friend at the academy called Netara, and she dated this guy Alden three times . . .”

“Could have been four.”

“Three or maybe four times . . .”

“But over several months,” Dax said. “He was around a fair bit. I don’t want you to think he was a complete
stranger
or anything . . .”

Bowers lifted his hand to stop the flow of information. “I get the idea. And what I’m getting at is this: why exactly are you pulling all the stops out for this guy, Ezri?”

Dax, who had been smoothing down her uniform and looking around the
Aventine
’s state-of-the-art transporter room to make sure everything was spotless (it was), stopped and thought,
Good question.

“Given that by this point in your life he’s surely no more than a minor footnote . . .”

“I guess . . .” Dax paused to think. “I guess, because he was around during an important bit. You know, right near the start, when you’re not shy or nervous anymore, but the end isn’t anywhere near in sight, and so you’re just enjoying the freedom and the comparative lack of responsibility.”

“I think I just about remember that,” Bowers said wistfully. “Despite the rusting memory and the dimming haze of time.”

“And Peter Alden, he was a year or two older than the rest of us. The crowd I went around with. It made a difference. We all wanted his approval, anyway, and then, to top it all, he was
brilliant,
Sam. A standout student. Obviously destined for great and important things.”

“‘Most Likely to Be Admiral Before the Rest of Us,’ huh?” Bowers frowned. “I knew a few like that.”

“No, not that type at all! Not pushy or self-important—the very opposite. Cooler, quieter. Modest, almost. But confident in himself. Like he had his eye on what was
really
important. Whenever one of us said anything—and you know ‘youngsters,’ too much to say most of the time—we always had half an eye on Peter Alden. What did he think of it? Did he approve? Was he disappointed? Everyone raised their game when Peter Alden was around.”

Dax paused. What about shy, gawky, hapless Ezri Tigan, who had found Peter Alden yet another entirely daunting experience that the academy was throwing at her? Had she raised her game? Had she
ever
raised her game, before Dax?

“Even Ezri Tigan?” Bowers said gently.

Dax laughed. “Yes, I think that once or twice even
she
managed to shine for Peter Alden.”

Bowers smiled. Dax twitched her uniform again. Trust Sam to know what was really going on in her head, to guess what it meant for her to be meeting someone who had known her before Dax.

It seemed a long time since Ensign Ezri Tigan, half qualified as a counselor and with slightly less than half a clue, had unexpectedly become the host of the venerable Trill symbiont, Dax. She’d been twenty years old. Time passed, and these days the people who had known her as Ezri Tigan seemed fewer and farther between. So when the
Aventine
had been assigned to
collect Peter Alden, an intelligence expert on Tzenkethi affairs, and take him to rendezvous with a diplomatic mission en route to the Venette Convention, Ezri had been struck by the name. The thought of glimpsing that girl again—through someone else’s eyes, and someone whom that girl had admired—was tantalizing.