STAR TREK: DS9 - The Left Hand of Destiny, Book One Page 20

  “Gorsh,” he replied, and glanced at the voiceprint analyzer.

  Neither guard bothered to look at the display, because they knew what Martok knew: The analyzer at this gate was poorly calibrated and would not give either a definite positive or negative ID. He pointed at it and said, “They still haven’t replaced that?”

  One of the guards shrugged.

  “It was like that when I was posted here two years ago. I called maintenance every week,” Martok continued.

  This time the second guard shrugged and said, “They’ll fix it when it pleases them. They have other, more important projects now.” He nodded toward the crater and Martok shook his head in sympathetic disgust. Pushing past the barrier, he silently thanked Gowron for his indifference to day-to-day maintenance minutiae. He walked briskly to the second door just past the barrier, but then turned around and casually mentioned, “I didn’t see any of his pets outside.”

  Both guards looked at each other uneasily and one [229] replied, “They haven’t been around since yesterday afternoon. Where have you been?”

  “My unit was in the lowlands looking for rebels.”

  “Did you find anything?” one of them asked.

  Martok shook his head in the time-honored manner of all weary soldiers. “I do not know,” he said, and held up the satchel. “But my petaQ commander does not like me and I was selected to bring this report.”

  One of the guards laughed. “Too bad. Maybe he’s keeping the pets hungry just for bearers of bad tidings.”

  “Or for her,” the other said, and nodded his head toward the center of the castle. “For Martok’s widow. After they’ve used the cha’ta’rok.”

  “His widow?” Martok asked, surprised. “You think he’s dead.”

  The first one touched the d’k tahg on his belt and replied evenly, “He must be.”

  Martok glanced at the man’s eyes. “Why do you say that?”

  The guard shook his head, but refused to speak. The other, either less fearful or less circumspect, answered for him. “If the general was alive,” he said, “he would be here by now.”

  He acknowledged their answers, turned his back, and headed for the inner door. Once safely through, he ducked into the nearest storage closet, leaned his back against the wall, slipped off the stifling helmet, and breathed deeply. Steady, Martok. Those last comments had unnerved him: the rank-and-file soldiers believed he was dead. They would follow me—I sensed it. I could see it in their eyes. The prospect of leading an army against Morjod revitalized him.

  [230] He pulled the bat’leth off his back and hefted it with one hand. From the appearance of the dull blade, Martok could see that it had not been used much in recent years. He decided he liked the old, off-balance, and slightly blunted weapon; it felt companionable. You need a name, he thought, and decided on the spot to call it Dagh, which in Klingon meant simply “tooth.” He slung it back over his shoulder and felt better for it. Arriving in Sto-Vo-Kor with a blade that had a name would be honorable.

  Far more important than the bat’leth was the guard’s confirmation that Sirella was here.

  Replacing the helmet, he continued on his way. Up ahead, he remembered, and around the corner was a T-intersection with stairs leading up to the right. Couriers would proceed up the stairs to the main reception area, where the administrative adjunct would relieve couriers of their satchels or parcels. To the left was another stairway he had never taken, one that led down into the bowels of the palace. Instinct told him that this was where he would find Sirella.

  Peering around the corner down at the T-intersection, he saw a single guard, this one looking considerably more alert than any he had spotted outside. He touched the slim knife in the sheath on his forearm. He had been surprised to find the blade on the guardsman’s wrist, but, unlike the bat’leth, he reasoned, this was precisely the sort of thing a soldier who worked the streets of the First City would want to have at hand. Sweeping around the corner in what he hoped looked like an officious pace, he fervently hoped he would not have to kill the guard, possibly drawing needless attention to his presence.

  [231] As he turned left at the T, walking confidently toward the stairs, the guard called to him. Martok tugged the blade in its sheath.

  Somewhere below, Sirella waited for him. He would do what he must.

  15

  THE DUNGEON’S NARROW hallways and low ceilings scraped the top of Martok’s head. Putting the helmet back on might protect his skull, but his vision and hearing would be further impaired. Shuffling along as fast as he could, head held low, he felt exposed, anxious. What if he was spotted? Even worse, recognized. The dimly lit hallways prevented him from seeing more than a few meters ahead; a guard station could be in the next patch of deep shadow and Martok wouldn’t know until he had practically stepped into a disrupter’s muzzle.

  He stopped arid tried to quiet his breathing enough that he could listen for cues about the path ahead, but it proved difficult. The air was so dry and close that Martok had to consciously resist the urge to take deep draughts of air. He strained to catch every ambient noise. Nothing. He heard nothing, not even the to-be-expected slow drip of leaky plumbing or the gasp of a dilapidated ventilation unit. Where was Worf and his [233] precious Starfleet tricorder when he was really needed? Nothing else to do, really, except press ahead. He filled his lungs, released it, filled them again, and, for the first time in many days, felt the muscles in his neck loosen. He did not realize, until that moment, how much weight he had been carrying there.

  And who am I carrying? he asked himself. Sirella? Worf, Jaroun, K’Tar, and every other warrior who has died these past three days? My father, even the little Ferengi and his father? Drex, Shen, and Lazhna? And here he felt shame. My children ... I’ve barely spared them a thought. How can that be? Have I been so focused on Sirella that I forgot them? And, again, he was shamed because he knew the answer: Martok loved his children, but he had not truly known them. They existed through Sirella. Even Drex had only become fully formed in his mind when he became a soldier of the empire. And then there was the consideration of what kind of soldier, what kind of man, his son was. And the truth was, it was something he did not care to think about.

  “What am I doing here?” he asked aloud, and Martok knew himself well enough to know that the question did not address only this corridor in this dungeon in this palace at this moment. What was he doing here? He had an answer, but Martok—Martok the warrior, Martok the general, Martok the chancellor—felt fear creep up his spine, but knew, absolutely knew he had to speak the words aloud.

  He whispered his answer, but then, feeling a coward, he spoke them again and the words tore at the dry, still air. He said, enunciating each syllable as clearly as he could, “I do not know.” A nameless dread clawed at him, [234] and Martok suddenly found himself remembering a childhood game where he and his friends would dare each other to speak a mythological demon’s name three times while staring into a mirror. Would the demon appear behind the glass? None ever had, but there was no way to know if this time would be the one. And now what demon have I unleashed? He watched the shadows and waited. He felt his heart in his chest and counted the beats.

  The answer, apparently, was none.

  And then he heard her voice.

  “Martok?”

  He wondered if it was his imagination playing tricks on him. It might well be. He had slept no more than three hours in the past three days. His eye felt like a dry bit of charcoal in the socket, but it was impossible to resist the temptation to answer.

  “Sirella?”

  “Here.”

  “Where?” Her voice was little more than a rasp and indistinct, as if through a wall or ... “Speak again.”

  “I am here, husband. Beneath you, I think.”

  Martok took a step forward and saw a soft glow on the floor no more than three paces before him. It was a tiny drain, though for what, Martok could not guess. He knelt down and peered through. “Sirella?”

&n
bsp; “Yes. You are louder now and above me. There must [be] a grate in the ceiling. I thought I heard you speak earlier, but I could not be certain.”

  “Sirella, keeper of my soul and my honor ... Hearing your voice, my weariness falls away and I am whole again.”

  “It is good to hear your voice, too, my husband,” [235] Sirella said. She sounded, if possible, even more exhausted than Martok had felt.

  “How do I get down to you? Can you see a door or a stairway?”

  “No, but there must be one. I have had visitors—the usurper and one other—and they came from a dark corner, though this room is not large, I think. If I can judge, the door and where you are speaking from are near each other. Check the walls near you.”

  “I will. Be strong, my wife. I will be with you soon.”

  Before he could straighten up, Martok heard Sirella say, “Have you ever known me to be anything else?” He smiled. Same old sting in her voice. At least that has not changed.

  Once he knew what he was looking for, finding the lip of the hidden door was simple. He slipped the tip of his bat’leth into the crack and slowly worked it around until he felt it catch on something. Probing carefully, he checked for a tripwire or an alarm, but detected nothing. This troubled Martok more than if he had found something, but he had no choice except to proceed. The door was opened with a kick plate on the floor and when he pressed it, a section of wall slid back. Martok pushed on the door and it slid aside as if [it] was on a track. Very clever, he thought. And quiet, too. When I am the chancellor again, I will have to consult the original plans. ... He stopped then, surprised to be thinking about the future. One thing at a time. ...

  Halfway down the stairway, the steps suddenly became slippery and the air grew clammy. Some kind of reservoir beneath the palace? Martok wondered, and added that question to the list of things he would investigate if he ever had the opportunity.

  [236] He found another door before him and felt for its edges. It opened, as had the other, without a sound, and Martok stood in a pool of blackness, but he decided that made no sense. He had seen a soft glow in Sirella’s cell. How could he be sheathed in darkness? He reached out carefully and touched a heavy black curtain. Ah. Clever. He swept the curtain aside and stepped forward. Unfortunately, he did not know that the curtain marked the edge of a low shelf and he stumbled awkwardly off it, splashing into ankle-deep water and almost dropping his bat’leth.

  “Clumsy oaf. Can’t you be more careful?”

  Sirella stood before him, arms folded across her chest, back straight, head held high, lips curled into a delicious sneering smile. Martok felt the oily water soak into his boots and he had to fight a sudden need to pass water of his own.

  “Good to see you, too, Sirella. Are you ready to leave?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you’re prepared to be chancellor again.”

  Stung, Martok asked, “What makes you think I’m not?”

  “You have taken a long time to get here. I can only assume you’ve been dallying. Questioning your future. Second-guessing the past.”

  “Ah. Yes. Well, about that ...”

  “Not now, husband,” Sirella droned. “We should be leaving. I trust you have a plan?”

  “Of sorts,” Martok said, stepping closer to examine the cell door. It was not a complex lock, but it was strong, much too strong for a blow from a bat’leth to have any effect. A disrupter bolt might work, but it [237] would be risky in such tight quarters. Perhaps the hinges ...

  “The keys are over there,” Sirella said, and pointed to the opposite side of the room.

  Martok glanced at the opposite wall. The keys were on a peg. This was distressingly simple. “I do not like this,” Martok muttered.

  “Really?” Sirella drawled. “I cannot imagine why.” Another kind of chill suddenly froze the air around them. “Martok,” she said. “Tell me you have guards watching the entrance.”

  Martok winced. She only used his name when she needed to tighten her grip on him, one way or another.

  “Sirella ...”

  “Tell me ...”

  “I’ll get the keys.” He splashed across the room.

  “Martok.”

  “I’ll have you free in a moment.” He splashed back.

  “You must leave,” she said softly, but firmly. “They cannot capture you.”

  “No,” he said, his voice just as soft. “I’ve come too far to find you. You must come. They’re going to execute you. ...”

  “Do you think I’m as stupid as you are?” she hissed. “Don’t you think I know that?” She reached through the bars and snatched the keys from his hand and pulled them to her breasts. Then, with the other hand, she grabbed Martok’s beard and hauled him to the bars of the cage. “They killed our Lazhna,” she whispered. “Shen and Lazhna are dead.”

  Martok’s chest tightened and his throat closed. My daughters ... Our daughters ... The anger, the pain, both boiled up inside him and behind that bolus of rage [238] came the thought I barely knew them. ... I barely had a chance to know them. ... And then he said, “Drex?

  What about Drex?”

  “She told me he still lives,” Sirella said. “She said that he was on the run, but that he had escaped.”

  “She? She who? Who are you talking about? What about Morjod?”

  But Sirella wasn’t listening. “Find her, Martok. Escape this place and kill her in my name. She slew my daughters. What happens to me is irrelevant. I ask only for the chance to throw her off a cliff to Gre’thor once you’ve dispatched her to the afterlife. If you open this door, they’ll know you’re here and they’ll come, but if you turn around and leave, you might still escape so that you can find her. I command you in the names of our children and our fathers and mothers. Find her. And when you do, kill her.”

  “Kill who?”

  And from behind him, Martok heard a light soft laugh and a voice say, “Me, Martok. She means me. But you tried to do it once before, so I doubt if you could do it this time.”

  Martok felt something creep up his legs, into his chest, and out the top of his head. He fell against the bars and heard Sirella do the same. Darkness descended.

  “Little warrior, you are needed.”

  Pharh lifted his head and cracked it against something sharp. Fortunately, he possessed a very thick skull (many had remarked that it was his best feature), so there he didn’t hurt himself very badly. Pain—lots of pain—but no damage.

  He was in a little cave. Grasping his head and saying, [239] “Ow, ow, ow,” he tried to remember why he was in a little cave. It was a nice enough little cave, to judge by all the available evidence. It was pleasantly cool and damp, in fact. As had been the case so often lately, his pants were soaked through to his skin.

  Then, straining, he remembered. The Sporak had broken down ten klicks down the road from where he had dropped off Martok. It was much too far back to the landfill, so the logical plan was to head into the First City. He had left the road for what he had thought was a shortcut, then had ended up stumbling across a wide stretch of orange sand and gray rock. From his previous trips into the city, he knew that at this point it began to sweep back and forth in great curves, no doubt some kind of primitive defense mechanism. When he had been riding, the trips were enjoyably scenic, but as a pedestrian, he found them positively sadistic. The First City had been right there, right in front of him, and he couldn’t seem to get any closer. Deleting the curves and moving cross-country had seemed like a good idea. Less heat, less dust, fewer big birds.

  At first, the birds had been yet another interesting sight. They were about half his height when they stretched out their long necks, had large, heavy bills, beady eyes, and thick, sharp talons. They also had a thick crest of red feathers over their eyes that made them look faintly comical when Pharh first saw them. He had enjoyed watching them watch him. They sat by the side of the road, watched him approach, pivoting their long, thin heads on the
ir skinny necks, then watched him walk past. As soon as Pharh moved a few paces past, he would hear a heavy wump, wump, wump as they spread their heavy wings and seemingly by sheer force of will [240] levered themselves into the air. Then they would land a short way ahead of him and the whole performance would repeat itself.

  At first, Pharh had been amused, even grateful for the company, but as time passed and the birds’ attention had grown more avid, he had begun to worry. Confusing cause and effect, he had decided that if he left the road, the birds would leave him alone.

  Unfortunately, now it seemed pretty clear that the big birds hadn’t been sitting by the roadside because they liked it.

  “You’re an idiot,” Pharh had said to himself, because he thought that if he had had company, that’s what they would have said. Pharh didn’t like to disappoint anyone, even the people who weren’t with him. The next curve of the road hadn’t shown up as he had expected. In fact, he had been fairly certain that he had somehow gotten completely turned around and was now headed away from the First City, It was difficult to say for sure, because the sun had been almost directly overhead and he was hot and tired and thirsty and his water had been almost gone and the birds had been getting even friendlier and resting somewhere had seemed like a good idea.

  At that point, he had stumbled into a small dell and found the little cave. Actually, the “cave” was more like a pile of rocks, but Pharh wasn’t in a position to be picky. Looking over his shoulder, he had noted that the birds were still following him and when they spotted the cave, they had looked disapproving, which had struck Pharh as a good thing. Being an old hand at seeking emergency shelter, he had not simply stuck his head in the cave and crawled forward. These sorts of [241] havens were frequently occupied, so he had thrust in the nearly empty water container and moved it around for several seconds, then had waited to see if anything would emerge. When nothing had, Pharh had backed in feet first and pulled the water container after him, using it as a shield-slash-door. As soon as he had disappeared down his hole, the birds had wump-wumped to the entrance and begun to peck at the water container. Pharh wondered if maybe that’s what they had been after all along. He had considered shoving the container out to them, but decided it wasn’t worth taking a chance. He had a feeling that the beaks had been employed on more than one occasion to dig out things from tight places.