Star Trek: Corps of Engineers: Age of Unreason by Scott Ciencin

Author:Scott Ciencin
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Star Trek, Fiction
ISBN: 9780743475921
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2003-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter

5

“I’ve been in touch with Starfleet,” Bart said. He walked with Carol through an elegant hedge maze in the keep’s enormous central courtyard. A trio of guards—two women, plus the bulky Alhouan—trailed at a respectful distance. An hour had passed since Carol’s visit with the prisoner. “By this evening, the Sugihara will be standing by to beam us out of here if we raise the alarm.”

Carol frowned. “And Martin?”

“The hope is for a diplomatic solution to secure his release, obviously. But if he is indeed guilty of this murder, things become a bit murky. The Federation doesn’t have any jurisdiction here. Even if we decided to throw protocol out the window, scans from previous vessels show that a transporter beam can’t penetrate to the underground level where he’s being kept, and sending in an extraction team could touch off an incident that would be…unfortunate. Particularly with these people being in possession of a technology that absolutely baffles the top minds in S.C.E.”

“You transmitted the schematics?”

“No, I simply described what the device can do. Martin had the chance to do so but elected not to. I suppose he had his reasons.”

“He always does.” She shuddered. “Have they shown you the plans?”

“Only passages that have been copied from the original. Menzala Trivere was a genius on every possible level. His linguistic encryptions are among the best I’ve ever seen, and that was nothing but a sideline to him. Still, I’ve already cracked some of the code, and I’ll have the rest in time, I’m sure.”

“Is the Sugihara going to be able to back us up on planet?”

Bart shook his head. “Again, this is a delicate situation. Farhan Tanek authorized the intercession of three outsiders, and he has made it clear there will be no more.”

“Their scrolls…They must have a library here. I’ll need to see it.”

“I doubt they’ll allow that. They’ve been bringing items to me, and to Soloman, on a need-to-know basis.”

Carol hugged herself. “Then I’ll tell them, what I need to know is all of it.”

“I think you would have to put on quite a display to get anything accomplished in this place. And there are other concerns…”

“Assassins who can pop up anywhere, anytime? We can’t touch them, but they can hack us up into bits?”

Bart swallowed. “Right. Yes. That. Not so graphic, though, the way I would have phrased it.”

“We should each have one of those devices Tanek was wearing.”

“I’ve already suggested it to Soloman. He’ll do what he can.”

They navigated the remainder of the maze in silence. Every now and then, they passed laughing couples on benches, groundskeepers, or small gatherings of guards.

Any of them, Carol thought, any one of them could be a killer. Any one of them might be real…or an illusion. Tanek, what were you thinking when you approved the development of this technology? We can, therefore we should? I can wipe out my enemies? Then what?

What about your new enemies, your new rivals? How can you hope to control or contain a thing like this?

It was madness.

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