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  Sarek held up his hand, cutting the junior diplomat off. “While Dax is correct, you, too, are correct, Captain. The panic that could result from an unverified threat — and at minimum, the distrust such an incident would surely engender — could prove disastrous, though not as disastrous as a successful attack, to be certain. So it falls to you, Captain Styles, to make certain that security measures are increased on our side without inflaming the Klingons’ distrust of the Federation and its representatives, and without allowing any attack against the conference to succeed.”

  Tall order, Styles thought. He knew that he couldn’t back down now, and luckily, he and Cutler had been working on enhanced security scenarios already, despite his skepticism about Sulu’s warning.

  “We’ve already made plans to strengthen certain security procedures,” he said, “and we will take these new revelations into account as well.” He gestured toward Cutler, who was seated a few chairs away almost on the opposite side of the conference table. “Commander Cutler will explain further.”

  Cutler cleared her throat and squared her shoulders. Tapping commands into a small keypad in front of her, she looked toward the tri-screened viewer that was mounted in the table’s center. Data columns and related diagrams suddenly appeared there.

  “We already have strong detachments of security at the conference facilities, which will be in rotation with Klingon forces, as well as two specialized Starfleet security detachments that had already been dispatched, consisting of human, Vulcan, and Andorian officers. All of them have been briefed — and will be rebriefed — on explosives, frontal assaults, and other more conventional threats. There will be weapons checkpoints far outside the main complex, frequent interbuilding scans, and visual surveillance.”

  She tapped on the keyboard a few more times, and several new diagrams began a slow procession across the screen, displacing the earlier ones. “Given this new information from Doctors Klass and Chapel, we will also set up hidden sensors at every checkpoint to provide a thorough battery of scans for all known biohazardous agents.”

  “Be certain to input the data from the specific strain we’ve discovered,” Klass said, interrupting. “The combination has not yet been added to the Federation biohazard database. Just most of the individual elements.”

  Having been quiet for most of the meeting, Sulu finally spoke again, his voice deep and resonant. “The Klingons won’t like it, but I suggest a sterilization of the conference chambers, almost to clean-room conditions.”

  “That’ll certainly put a damper on their table manners,” Dax said with a mischievous grin.

  “It will also be more difficult to make this seem like a traditional precautionary measure,” Styles said. His own encounters with Klingons had made him keenly aware that these measures might push their already heightened distrust of humans over the brink, no matter how beneficial they might prove to be. “The more we clamp down, the more panic we can expect, or at least resentment. And we really don’t need the Klingons any more on edge than usual.”

  “I believe I can aid with that transition, Captain,” Sarek said. “Diplomacy is my arena. I will simply have to work somewhat harder to convince the Klingons that our security measures are conducive to their own goals. Perhaps I will blame it on humans and their irrational need for caution. That may both appease their warrior spirit and give them the honorable option of humoring us in our attempt to protect them better.”

  Cutler favored the Vulcan diplomat with a respectful nod. “Thank you, Mister Ambassador. Mollifying the Klingons will indeed be helpful. As to off-site security, in addition to Excelsior, we will have the assistance of multiple Klingon vessels. It’s my understanding that Captains Kor, Koloth, and Kang will be present with their respective battleships, if not others as well.”

  As Cutler continued, Styles stole a quick glance at Sulu. The first officer listened to the ship’s head of security with rapt attention, displaying no air of “I told you so” in his body language. In fact, he had been rather subdued throughout the meeting, making no mention of his hypothesized personal stake in catching the albino Klingon.

  Perhaps I’ve misjudged him a bit, Styles thought as he absentmindedly rubbed the metal end of the swagger stick that lay on the table in front of him. Maybe I’ve allowed my other feelings to fuel my suspicions.

  He didn’t feel any sudden need to forgive or forget his years of more-than-justified annoyance with Kirk and his Enterprise crew. But he was able to resolve, at least, that perhaps the time had finally come to give Sulu some of the benefit of his many doubts.

  THIRTEEN

  Stardate 9000.9 (Late 2289)

  Korvat

  “When nothing goes as planned, the world is in balance.” It was an old Trill saying, and Curzon Dax found it circling through his mind every thirty seconds or so, like an annoying insect that couldn’t be chased away. Though the mantra didn’t accurately reflect his high hopes for the Korvat peace conference, by midway through the first day he had to concede that it was apropos.

  Excelsior’s security team had been astonishingly thorough — far too thorough for the Klingons who found the whole screening process invasive and the facilities here at the Korvat colony far too clean for their unrefined sensibilities — and that had delayed the start of the talks for almost two hours. Even the calming influence of Ambassador Sarek had succeeded only in making the delays tolerable rather than “merely” maddening for the Klingons.

  Once the talks started, the posturing of the Klingons was almost Shakespearean in nature — Curzon was familiar with the old Earth playwright’s work largely through the memories of Emony — especially that of Ambassador Kamarag, who was backed not only by a support team of junior ambassadors, but also by a trio of cocky warrior captains named Koloth, Kang, and Kor. Kamarag’s voice rang loudly in the diplomatic hall, in bellicose contrast to Sarek’s stolidly emotionless and subdued tones.

  Dax knew that Sarek was a brilliant and enormously experienced diplomat, but he wondered just how well he understood the real cultural values of the Klingon Empire. Dax had little doubt that if even half of the boastful bluster that Kamarag had been spouting all day could be bagged and shipped, it could transform even the most barren Vulcan desert into a galactic agricultural marvel. Nevertheless, he also understood something of the substance behind the boasts; because he had made a careful study of Klingon society and biology during his undergraduate years, Dax suspected that he might understand its subtleties better than anyone present who had not actually been born on Qo’noS, Sarek included.

  Dax had noticed immediately that Kor and Kang had the smooth foreheads that labeled them as QuchHa’; their presence here today, and their influential positions as the captains of Klingon warships, meant that despite their culturally undesirable — and fully visible — genetic aberrations, they had clawed their way to the top. By contrast, Kamarag and Koloth and nearly all the other Klingons present possessed the more traditional textured HemQuch forehead. But Koloth, Dax had learned, hadn’t been born with his HemQuch features, having acquired them later in life, after he had already achieved a captaincy, presumably in defiance of the same ingrained prejudices that Kang and Kor had had to overcome.

  Even before Dr. Klass and Dr. Chapel had conducted briefings about the bioengineering experiments of the suspected saboteur, Dax had known about the Klingons’ continued covert experiments with bioagents intended to restore the traditional HemQuch phenotypic features, lost to large numbers of Klingon bloodlines for reasons that were not well understood outside the Empire, to all members of the Klingon species. Unfortunately for those secretly experimenting on QuchHa’ test subjects, these efforts so far appeared to have achieved success only for those Klingons who possessed a very specific genetic profile. Dax could only conclude that Koloth had been born into this genetically favored smooth-headed group, since he had reviewed the tall Klingon captain’s profile in the Federation Diplomatic Corps’s intel files, which had contained both “before” and “a
fter” holoimages of Captain Koloth.

  Dax’s knowledge about the Klingon biosciences hadn’t come purely from Federation files, of course, nor had his knowledge of some of their societal secrets. After all, the Trill people were certainly experts at keeping secrets, about both themselves and their adversaries, and therefore did not share information indiscriminately, even with allies such as Earth or other Federation members. It was because of the closely held secret of Trill symbiosis that the Trill people had sought neither apologies nor reparations from the Klingons when a strain of the Klingon-engineered Levodian flu retrovirus had mysteriously infected a Trill colony. Although the infection had not proven lethal, it had caused a mutation not only among the Trill who were exposed to it but also among their descendants. Although the high, rippled forehead manifested by the few who carried the mutated genes differed from the classic features of the Klingons, there were those, sadly, who considered it a dangerous oddity, a prejudice that had driven many with the trait into hiding on their own homeworld. Only now that a second generation of this small minority was beginning to come of age were the Trill with rippled foreheads being seen again, and accepted, in public.

  Kamarag finally sat down, but before Sarek could take his turn to speak, Koloth rose to his feet. Although the Klingon captain had been argumentative with both Sarek and Dax almost since their first exchange of words, what emerged now was an icy-cold kind of argumentativeness, somehow passionate and yet almost devoid of surface emotion. For a Klingon, Koloth would make a pretty good Vulcan, Dax thought.

  “The Klingon Empire has never before considered a peace initiative such as this one, because we have had no need to do so,” Koloth said, continuing with some of the same points that had just been made by Kamarag, as well as by Baktrek, one of the Klingon junior emissaries who had spoken earlier. “The initiative begs the obvious question: Why should we ally ourselves with those who are weaker than we are, when we could simply conquer them instead?”

  “But you have already chosen not to conquer them,” Sarek said, breaking in quickly when Koloth stopped to take a breath. “The Klingon Empire has not expanded significantly in more than two decades. My understanding is that this is because the High Council does not wish to overextend its already depleted resources with further conquests, preferring instead to consolidate its most recent gains and thereby strengthen the Empire domestically.”

  “You know nothing of the reasoning of our High Council,” Koloth said. Though his brow crinkled more severely, no other outward sign of anger or peevishness was visible on his face. “Nor do we need to explain it to you.”

  “Perhaps it would help us to understand more clearly if you did explain it,” Dax said, hoping his words wouldn’t be taken as empty sarcasm even as he spoke them. “If conquest really is the virtue you seem to think it is, then why did the High Council make a trade pact with the Romulan Star Empire more than twenty years ago? Using your logic, Captain Koloth, conquest would presumably have been simpler than cooperation.”

  “Bah,” grunted Kor, rousing himself in his seat to lean forward. “That was purely a military strategy. It lasted no longer than it needed to.”

  “If you can ally yourself with the Romulans — who have antagonized all of us at one time or another — for even a brief time,” Dax countered, “then why do you seem so unwilling to attempt to establish an even more productive, more beneficial peace with the much larger and much more prosperous Federation?”

  Kamarag squinted as he leaned forward menacingly. “We are here, are we not? And we have not left the table.”

  “And yet, we seem to be at a stalemate, sirs,” Dax said, leaning forward himself and baring his teeth as he spoke. He understood that he was adopting an aggressive posture, but he also knew that the Klingons were testing their adversaries-cum-potential-allies — and had been testing them for hours now. And this was only the first day of the conference.

  Sarek placed a hand on Dax’s arm, squeezing almost imperceptibly. Dax felt his arm go nearly numb from the light but insistent pressure. “Perhaps now would be a good time for a brief break for refreshments,” Sarek said. “We can resume our talks shortly.”

  He gestured behind him, where Captain Styles and his retinue from Excelsior were stationed in a staging gallery. “I have asked Captain Styles to have his cooks prepare a kettle of bahgol for your enjoyment,” Sarek said.

  “It had best be warmed properly,” Baktrek said grumpily as two Excelsior crew members brought forward trays of the flattened bowls containing the bahgol.

  Dax took one of the steaming metal bowls and almost dropped it onto the table because it was so hot. He saw the Klingons grab the bowls brusquely, displaying no such aversion to the temperature of the food. Neither did any of them complain when bringing the steaming bowls to their dark lips.

  “It is adequate,” Koloth said, liquid dripping from the tips of his long mustache. Dax would have offered him a napkin had any been present, but he knew that no matter how formal or ceremonial an occasion might be, a sleeve was always the best friend to a Klingon in the act of drinking or eating.

  Downing his drink with a speed that might have cauterized a non-Klingon esophagus, Kang slammed the bowl down on the table and stood. “You Earthers and your allies,” he said, sweeping one arm toward the Excelsior crew before gesturing toward Sarek, Dax, and Dostara. “You have no concept of where the Klingon Empire has been, nor of what true honor is and what the warrior’s life is like. Your people have been domesticated, the sight of blood making you queasy, your economies and politics and social attitudes equalized to the point of ridiculousness.

  “It is no wonder that the Federation sends three aliens to negotiate,” Kang continued. “The humans are the softest of all. That is why they ally themselves with others — to protect themselves against those who could wipe them out with minimal exertion. This is why they seek now to bring the Klingon Empire into their pact. We have an old saying: ‘Keep your enemy as a friend, but be ready to gut him when the time comes.’ This is a —”

  “If you’re not willing to speak civilly, and without threats, these talks are useless,” Dax said evenly and sternly, his voice low. He was surprised he had said it out loud.

  Kang stared down at the man who interrupted him for a moment, then resumed his tirade. “This is a negotiation that offers us nothing. The Klingon Empire should choose when it wishes to be at peace and when it wishes to achieve its ends through the warrior’s arts. It is our power that terrifies others, that brings them to us, suing for peace —”

  Dax stood up abruptly, the bahgol in front of him slopping out of its bowl and onto the table. “Your passion has blinded you,” he said evenly, then turned and began to walk away.

  Dax strode purposefully toward the room’s main exit, hyperaware with each step away from the table that he was risking both the abrupt end of his career and of his life. To say nothing of our chances for peace, he thought.

  But his intensive study of Klingon culture and their often violent debating techniques told Dax that his calculated but spur-of-the-moment tactic might actually get him somewhere. He wished he could explain that to Sarek somehow, but he hadn’t realized he was actually going to make the bold gesture until a split second before the time to do it was upon him.

  The room was deathly quiet for a few moments as he walked, and although he could not turn around to see, he imagined that Kang’s mouth was probably opening and closing like that of a beached fish. Then, as he neared the door and the Klingon and Starfleet security personnel who guarded it, he heard a roar of anger rising behind him. It no doubt would have sounded utterly incoherent to anyone who wasn’t conversant with the fine art of Klingon cursing.

  The guards let Dax pass, and he felt steady when his hands made contact with the heavy wooden doors that separated the conference hall’s inner sanctum from the outer corridor beyond. Outside stood an entire phalanx of guards — both Starfleet and Klingon — who looked at him with surprise as he strode out in
to their midst.

  Although the time seemed an eternity, Dax knew that only seconds had elapsed before he heard Kang roaring up behind him. He turned and saw that Koloth and Kor were flanking their fellow captain, whose deep brown features had turned almost purple with near-apoplectic outrage. Even Koloth’s heretofore-icy features displayed fervid displeasure.

  “You are either the most foolish diplomat who ever drew breath, or else you have a death wish!” Kang shouted, spittle flying from his mouth in a fine spray.

  “Perhaps neither,” Dax said, his voice as steady and unquavering as he could make it. “Perhaps I merely don’t wish to waste my time listening to boasts and veiled threats. If you are not ready to cooperate and act with honor, then perhaps the High Council sent the wrong emissaries to represent them.”

  Dax stood his ground in silence as he tried to force his slightly shaking knees to remain still. Kang stared at him, and Dax imagined — perhaps wrongly — that he saw a spark of grudging respect flashing deep in the Klingon captain’s eyes.

  Kor spoke up then. “You challenge Kang’s honor?”

  I had a feeling that might have been the wrong word to use the moment I said it, Dax thought. But he had chosen this road and now had to deal with the consequences.

  “I did not,” he said. “Those who act in concert with the spirit of these peace negotiations — as agreed to by the High Council —do act with honor. If Kang does not feel he is obeying those directives, then he is the one who would feel that he has betrayed his honor.”

  Behind the Klingons, Dax saw that Commander Sulu and Lieutenant Commander Cutler had exited the chamber as well, and were quickly relaying commands to their security officers. Beyond them, he saw Sarek and Dostara trying to talk with Kamarag and Baktrek and the other ambassadors, even as Captain Styles and several of his staff stood by, obviously considering their next moves, diplomatic or otherwise.