Joseph was doing his best to act the part and keep the Romulan away. He screamed in terror, threw every object he could find—including Zol’s own medical case—and ran back and forth with speed that Picard could see bordered almost on the impossible.
Another doctor might have given up, affected by the child’s reaction. But Zol wasn’t that kind of being. Distress in others did not concern him.
So he did what Picard knew he would do.
He shot Joseph.
The disruptor blast made Joseph’s form shimmer, like a faulty holodeck image, and Picard saw Zol’s shocked reaction.
The disguised Doctor tried to cover for his mistake, spoke into his wrist as if he wore a communicator there, and shouted, “Beam me up!” A moment later, he disappeared in a curtain of light, as if he had been beamed away.
But Zol appeared to be prepared for that subterfuge, and immediately pulled a tricorder from his belt, scanned the room, and fired a wide burst.
Picard saw the sparkling outline of the Doctor take shape, as if he were a sculpture made of water.
Zol fired again, this time with pinpoint accuracy, hitting the one part of the Doctor that wasn’t illusory—his holoemitter, no larger than a combadge.
A flash of sparks burst from the small device, and the outline vanished as the holoemitter dropped straight to the floor.
Zol walked back to Picard, looked down on him with a sneer.
“Jolan True,” he said.
And then he left.
24
S.S. CALYPSO, REMUS, STARDATE 57488.2
Kirk enjoyed seeing Riker’s and Worf’s reaction to the bridge of the Calypso. They were both as aghast as he had been.
“This is not a Starfleet vessel,” Worf had grumbled.
“Is too,” Joseph had countered.
And then Worf had fixed the boy with a steely glare and growled, “Is not,” and that had been the end of the debate.
In the briefing that followed, Kirk was determined to bring together all the information the participants in this mission had previously kept compartmentalized. So La Forge again recounted, for Riker’s and Worf’s benefit, everything he and Picard had learned from Norinda about the Tal Shiar’s plans for war. Riker relayed Admiral Janeway’s analysis of the situation as established by Starfleet Intelligence. Kirk explained what he knew of Norinda’s first arrival in this galaxy.
And when they had shared all that they knew, Kirk could see that each of them, McCoy and Worf and even Joseph included, felt stronger, more secure. Stronger because, no longer in opposition with one another, they could now face the enemy together. More secure, because their stories fit together. They at last knew the truth.
But afterward, Riker still felt the need to take Kirk aside by the steps on the bridge. Kirk knew why, and asked McCoy to join them.
“Aren’t you feeling used?” Riker asked.
“By Starfleet?” Kirk said. “Always.”
“But Janeway sent you to search for the people who murdered Spock, even though Starfleet already had that information.”
“No, they didn’t,” Kirk said.
McCoy supplied more explanation. “Jim means Starfleet might have known the group responsible—the Tal Shiar—but they didn’t and still don’t know the individuals who did it. Those are the people we have to find.”
Riker shook his head, still conflicted. “But Starfleet’s going to make a deal with the Tal Shiar,” he said. “At least, the captain is going to attempt it.” He studied Kirk closely. “If I was asked to be part of a mission to negotiate with the murderers of someone close to me, I don’t think I could do it.”
Kirk pitied and envied Riker’s relative youth—the passion of a freshly minted starship captain. “The deal Jean-Luc wants to make with the Tal Shiar isn’t to reward them, Will. It’s a way to contain and diminish them. Is it the best way? I don’t know. But what’s important, and what Spock would want, is that Starfleet isn’t turning a blind eye to what happened.”
Kirk put his hand on Riker’s shoulder, as if giving a benediction. “You’re a starship captain, not a god. There are going to be times when you won’t be able to find solutions for the problems you face; you’ll only be able to choose directions that someday, maybe, if you’re lucky, will take you where you want to go. I think even Jean-Luc would agree with me that most of the times, it’s the journey that’s important, not the destination.”
Riker’s quick smile was infectious. “And the rest of the time, it’s the waiting, right?”
“Until you’re my age,” McCoy said. “Then it’s all waiting.”
As the men laughed, their discussion over, Joseph apparently deemed the moment right to hold Riker to his promise.
“Captain Riker—can you show me your yacht now?”
“Is that how you got here?” Kirk asked sharply. “Captain’s yacht? Not a shuttle?”
Riker grinned. “The yacht can do warp nine. Rank hath its privileges.”
But Kirk didn’t share Riker’s levity. “Weren’t you challenged?”
“I filed a flight plan from Latium. I was already in Romulan space.”
Riker hadn’t understood the point of his question. Kirk quickly made it clearer.
“We’re a civilian ship,” he said, “and we had to hold position at the Neutral Zone, at gunpoint, until we were escorted here. A captain’s yacht is not a diplomatic vessel—it’s a nicely appointed troop carrier. I don’t see how the Romulans let you into their home system without firing a shot across your bow.”
Kirk had gotten Riker’s attention. Riker swirled the liquid in his coffee cup, thinking. “Maybe the difference was…you originally had a flight plan for Romulus, and mine was for Remus.”
“So all of a sudden the Romulans don’t care who shows up around their sister planet?” Kirk asked.
Now even McCoy looked thoughtful, trying to make sense of the idea that the Romulans, renowned for their paranoia and sense of intrigue, apparently saw no need for either in Reman space.
“In fact, gentlemen,” Kirk continued, “when you think about it, if the Tal Shiar are planning to take action against Remus, then they’d have to be watching every ship arrival and departure here. Because if their enemies have discovered their plans, this is where and when an enemy would take action to stop them.”
“And here we are,” McCoy said slowly, “an abandoned Federation-registry vessel allowed to remain on orbit, and a Starfleet captain’s yacht docked with us…and no one’s even been by to shine a searchlight on our hull.”
“It is as if we’re being deliberately ignored,” Riker added.
Kirk didn’t agree. “Ignored? Highly unlikely, especially among Romulans.”
“Or else,” Riker offered, “they already know all about us, and know we aren’t a threat.”
But Kirk pointed out the flaw in that reasoning, too. “There’s only one way anyone could know who we are and what we’re doing here, Will. Instead of Norinda’s Jolan Movement having infiltrated the Tal Shiar, the Tal Shiar has infiltrated them.”
McCoy intervened abruptly. “I hate to use this kind of language, but if that’s true, then…then logic dictates everything Norinda has told us about the Tal Shiar and their plans is a lie, unknowingly, or otherwise.”
“Which means,” Kirk said, “we’ve just gone from having all the information about what’s going on here, to having none of it, in less than five minutes.”
Their somber and discouraging realization was interrupted by La Forge calling out from communications.
