“Well, thatwasn’t part of the plan,” he said through his teeth. Taking a deep breath, Vaughn clasped his hands together and raised them to his lips. So much for sleeping. “Ensign Tenmei, when we reach the end of the shipping lane, find an asteroid and park the Defiantbehind it. Ensign Cassini, sweep the Consortium for any Starfleet homing beacons.”
He had an answer within seconds. “I’m picking up a low-frequency homing device coming from Consortium grid 4–7–5. It’s the Avaril,sir.”
Not surprising. Not surprising in the least.“Address intership.”
“Intership open,” Bowers acknowledged.
“Attention all hands, this is Commander Vaughn. Lieutenant Nog has been abducted and is being held on the Yrythny ship Avaril.Our return to Vanìmel will be postponed until he is safely returned to us. Strategy and possible solutions will be discussed at the crew meeting scheduled at 2200 in the mess hall. Vaughn out.”
“Sir,” Cassini said, “Why would Chieftain J’Maah take Lieutenant Nog?”
“I don’t think it’s Chieftain J’Maah, Ensign. In fact, I’d bet Chieftain J’Maah doesn’t know Nog’s aboard the Avariland that whoever has taken him has him well hidden.”
“Any clues as to who it is?” Bowers asked.
“We’ll probably find that out about the same time J’Maah does.” He wasn’t sure who exactly was responsible, but he hoped the bogus cloak specs he’d deliberately left aboard Avarilwould unmask the perpetrator. Apparently Vaughn and Nog’s sleight of hand had been too convincing—or not convincing enough—because Nog was snatched along with the tech, possibly because giving the Cheka an engineer familiar with the technology would sweeten whatever deal was being made.
Time to dip into my bag of tricks and see what we can come up with.Getting Nog off the Avarilbefore the Yrythny ship pulled a disappearing act of its own might require more than magic.
Any doubts the Assembly might have had about Ezri’s fitness to be a mediator vanished after her swift, decisive intervention averted violence in the Old Quarter. During their midnight meeting, she persuaded Rashoh to see the folly of offensive action when the Wanderer population was already inflamed. The Assembly leadership’s astonishment at her prescient understanding endowed her with a certain degree of clout. All she’d done was spell out logical consequences, where both Houseborn and Wanderer leadership lacked the emotional or intellectual distance to find reason themselves.
She wasn’t about to admit that had it not been for the anonymous message, she would have gone to bed without a second thought. No need to needlessly confuse the outcome. In the following days, a grateful Assembly Chair Rashoh readily agreed, on behalf of the Upper Assembly, to provide DNA samples to Shar for his genetic experiments. Rashoh’s reasoning had been that Shar would put to rest, once and for all, any doubt of the Houseborn’s superiority. Whether Shar would finish his research in a timely fashion was debatable, but he could always transmit the results to Vanìmel when and if he drew any substantive conclusions.
In Ezri’s eyes, her diplomatic victory vindicated her methodology. There had been a few moments along the way when she doubted her own competence, worrying that the Yrythny conflict would only be settled through war. Even Shar’s insistence that a scientific solution should supersede diplomatic initiatives caused her to waver in her commitment to see the talks through. In hindsight, thanks to Dax’s cumuluative wisdom, she’d instinctively known the best course from the start.
With Shar analyzing Yrythny DNA and word from Vaughn indicating that the Defiantwas three days out from Vanìmel, Ezri recognized she’d reached a place where she needed to pull all her fact-finding, interviews and analyses together. The Assembly expected, and deserved, a proposal and they would have one.
She didn’t have the luxury of waiting for Shar, who might or might not have concrete results before Vaughn returned. The underground might launch another attack. Yrythny life didn’t stand to change much before Dax left.
Returning to her quarters, Ezri stood on her head to think. She considered her knowns. The most reasonable among the Houseborn, Jeshoh for example, still had legitimate, significant doubts about the Wanderers’capacity for self-regulation, and House Tin-Mal was proof enough to him. From her own experience on Vanìmel, Ezri wasn’t convinced the planet could sustain unlimited Yrythny proliferation. If the Wanderers were allowed to reproduce, both sides would have to impose limitations on reproduction unless the sustainability questions could be suitably resolved. The Wanderers, justifiably, wanted to be held as equals, to escape servile lives, to take consorts and mate as other Yrythny did—and they were prepared to use violence to secure those rights if the Houseborn didn’t agree to their demands.
Ezri didn’t need blood rushing to her head to conclude that she didn’t see a way that these two castes could continue to coexist on the planet unless one side or the other was willing to divvy up the ring city, the oceans and the arable land. Partition it all. Nothing in Vanìmel’s history or her knowledge of either side led her to believe that the Yrythny would accept this as a solution.
Dropping her feet back to the floor, Ezri slowly stood up, trying to avoid the lightheadedness that often followed a headstand. Padds and datachips covered her couch. She picked through the pile, searching for inspiration, passing over histories, legislative calendars until her hand hovered over starcharts for the surrounding sectors. Hadn’t Vaughn’s last message said that they’d figured out how to make Nog’s femtobot defense work? Once the Yrythny had that technology and could use it to defend themselves, her solution would be much more hopeful than it currently seemed. It wasn’t a glamorous solution or an original one, but it had the benefit of successful precedents.
She touched her combadge. “Dax to Candlewood.”
“Go ahead.”
“Bring me anything in the Sagan’s database on Earth’s 16th through 18th century colonial movements.”
“Will do. Anything else?”
Ezri plopped into a chair and threw her feet out in front of her. The triannual Yrythny Homecoming was scheduled to begin the day after tomorrow. Three times a year, Houseborn Yrythny returned to their House of origin to go into the waters with their consort and lay eggs. A good time to announce her proposed treaty. “Yes. Please set up a meeting with Assembly Chair Rashoh. Tell him I think I’ve got something he’ll want to hear.”
Sitting down at the terminal, Ezri forced herself to work on the draft proposal. Her hands hung in the air; mentally, she drew a blank as she tried to coax out the language. At least I have something to offer. Throw in a few Dax flourishes and they’ll be pleased. I’m sure of it. Of course they will. Why wouldn’t they? It’s not like they have any ideas of their own and this is a solid solution.
Her hands remained suspended over the terminal keys.
Nothing else has been proposed. What are you waiting for, Dax? Go for it.
Drawing from the initial draft of the Khitomer Accords, Dax composed the opening of the Yrythny Compromise, all the while unable to ignore the nagging feeling that she ought to wait. But didn’t she know everything she needed to know by now? She’d lived longer than all of them put together.
Under cloak, Defiantshadowed Avaril.
The Yrythny ship hadn’t strayed too far from the Consortium shipping lanes to Vanìmel. Once Nog had been rescued the Defiantwouldn’t have far to go to reunite with the away team, though Vaughn hadn’t been able to contact Ezri and update her as to their latest dilemma. To avoid detection by the Avaril,the Defianthad remained under cloak and maintained communications silence.