echoes that defended himself as well as Perren. The
flare faded then, quite abruptly, and humility returned.
He was troubled; it was easy to see.
"You're saying he believes Rittenhouse was basi-
cally right," I said. "That moral unity has to be
established, even by force. Right?"
"All Vuicans have the same basic beliefs," he went
on, making it suffice as his answer. "But the right to
individualism includes the right to disagree. Unfortu-
nately, that also means there is disagreement on how
to achieve the goals of peace. Perren's talents as an
applied scientist have given him comfort all his life,
and he feels an acute awareness of those who have no
151
such opportunities because of their governmental sys-
tems. He feels a responsibility for the oppressed peo-
ples of the galaxy and wants to bring down the govern-
ments that oppress them. He . . . thinks it will be
simple."
I saw Sarda's embarrassment for Perren as he
spoke, once again staring into the tabletop, unable to
meet my eyes. This, however, was no time for delica-
cies. If Sarda had come here and was staying here out
of loyalty to Perren, I would have to rupture that bond
enough to get Sarda back. Our friendship, and the
success of our missionwthat peace he spoke of so
reverently--depended on it. Time would come later
for kindness.
"He's wrong, Sarda," I said, slicing across the lines
of tolerance. "His mistake is assuming the Klingons
and others will automatically give in when they're told
the Federation will use the power of transwarp against
them. He doesn't think they'll fight back against im-
possible odds. He doesn't understand irrationality.
Am I right?"
Reluctantly, he admitted, "You... are correct."
"And Mornay. She wants power as much as Perren
wants peace." "Yes."
"And he doesn't see through Mornay any better
than he sees through irrationality. He doesn't under-
stand why anyone would simply want power, because
it's an emotional goal." "Yes..."
"And where do you stand?"
He stiffened. His shame deepened. I had succeeded
in putting him on the spot. My appearance here, and
my dedication to my own mission, nailed him down.
Would he come with me, or stay with Perren?
"Where he stands doesn't matter anymore," came a
harsh voice from a corner behind Scanner.
152
Sarda and I turned abruptly. Scanner slid off the
table and whirled around. Several guards stood there,
sighting down their phaser rifles at us. They flanked a
stout woman with sharp, flashing eyes framed by a
bowl of dark gray hair. Her mouth was curled into a
forbidding grin, a sign of victory, as she took a few
steps toward us. Comfortably flanked by her guards,
Ursula Mornay had us at a stunning disadvantage.
She had aged considerably since the photo we'd
seen aboard Rex. Now her hair was peppery with the
years, her features harder, her small blue eyes creased
with lines and time. Her shoulders were slightly
stooped, but her youth had not been entirely sacri-
ficed. She still appeared strong and steady as she held
a phaser on us, evidently not satisfied to put her trust
completely in her hired guards.
"You've done good work, Sarda," she said, still
grinning. "Plenty well enough that we can t/ke over.
Now it's only a matter of time before I have all I
need."
"What is it you need?" I asked.
Her quick eyes flashed at me. "You'd love to know,
certainly. So you're Sarda's bold rescuers. Well
enough. I don't need him anymore."
Sarda's brow creased and he stepped forward, put-
ting himself between Mornay and us. "You dare not
activate the flux device without my safety systems,"
he said with a startling emphasis.
"I have your systems, don't I? I don't need you."
"Professor, you cannot--"
"I'm putting you away for safekeeping. If I need
you again, I'll have you. But under control." "And my friends?"
"Your friends' lives will guarantee your coopera-
tion. The logic of it is simple enough even for a Vulcan,
isn't it?"
I thought of what Spock had told us about her, about
153
her tunnelbound view of politics and her hunger for
power. Spock had postulated that Professor Mornay
didn't understand the true consequences of her
actions. With a little luck, I could manipulate that.
Deep breath... and dive.
"Professor," I began, "you're in great danger here.
You're too far out and too close to contested space for
the Federation to protect you. If you throw the
transwarp technology up for bid way out here, there's
going to be--"
"I know what there's going to be," she said. The
grin widened.
"And you don't care?"
"I have everything under control, don't I?" she
said. Quite plainly, she agreed with herself, and that
was the only person she cared to consult.
I took a step. "And where does Perren fit in? Does
he understand the repercussions of your plan?"
She shrugged, her little mouth twisting. "Perren's
ideas are quaint. He has no real perception of the
scope of possibilities within my grasp, now does he?
Why should he? He only cares about his work, and I
let him do his work. I'm the only one who lets him. I
do the thinking and he does the building. He doesn't
argue with me. It's a good working relationship."
"For you," I said.
"Where else can he go?" She paced to our right,
keeping the phaser leveled. "He wanted to force the
Federation to look at our device, to realize the poten-
tial. I want the same thing. Except that I want the
whole galaxy to realize the potential. Scope, you see. I
said that before. Scope." Her tiny eyes narrowed with
excitement at the idea and for a few moments she was
seeing her vision of the future instead of us.
In a bold gamble, I decided to test the vision. I
moved toward her.
And stopped shortmher phaser twitched and her
154
eyes cleared. Behind her, the guards' phaser rifles
snapped up. My reflection wavered in a half-dozen
cross-hair sights.
So much for that theory.
"Oh, Piper, you're not that silly, are you?" Mornay
taunted. "You're too military, aren't you? You think
dreamers can't be sensible, can't see the whole pic-
ture. Well, you're wrong!" Her tone became a bark,
her eyes sharp as fangs. "Scope! Once my device is
tested, I'll be a major bargaining force in the new
Federation."
"You sound like Rittenhouse," I accused.
"He had his plans. He failed. Now the turn is mine.
The starship will be here soon, and I willdemand that
Captain Kirk act as the Federation's emissary. When
we meet, it will be on equal ground." Her tone was
casual, but her manner had a cruciality about it. Not
the kind that could be argued with. Even Rittenhouse
appreciated the capabilities of his ene mies. It seemed
Mornay didn't. That trait made her wilder, more dan-
gerous. I closed my mouth and stiflened my jaw,
determined not to argue with her. It was plainly a
waste of time. Kirk was right to save her for himself to
deal with. She didn't take me seriously. Not yet.
She turned slightly when Perren walked in behind
her, threading his way through as the guards parted for
him, but her attention stayed with us.
Immediately I changed my course and raised a hand
to him. My own impotence struck me when I saw my
hand trembling. I had to force myself to speak. "Per-
ren, are you sure you understand what you've gotten
yourself into? Do you know that Professor Mornay
intends to ransom transwarp to the highest bidder?
Have you thought about the lives that would be lost in
a cosmic scramble?"
Mornay laughed out loud at my prattle of questions.
155
Perren merely inclined his head. "I have thought it
out," he said simply. "The resulting advantages are
worth the risks."
"But there is a moral imperative even more impor-
tant," I told him. "Would you have transwarp and the
trilithium technology fall into Tholian hands? Or Ro-
mulan hands? Or Klingon hands?"
His angular eyes swept toward Mornay, though he
didn't turn.
"Give it up," I implored, "before it gets too big to
control. Transwarp can do great good under the right
control. Don't make it a volleyball. She can't do
anything without you and she knows it. Don't cooper-
ate with her."
For an instant, a fleeting and definite doubt crossed
Perren's emotionless face. His brows came together
just that fraction of an inch, enough to tell me my
words struck a disharmonic chord he recognized and
feared. His chin lowered a fraction, cementing the
flicker of uncertainty in our minds. Even Mornay saw
it.
"I have... had to wrestle with my motivations,"
Perren admitted. "There is not always a right and
wrong to choose between. Some circumstances re-
quire a choice between a wrong and a wrong. I have
struggled with myself, but a commitment requires
decision, which I made long ago."
"Then decide again," I prodded. "Isn't there honor
in altering logic when the patterns of facts change?"
Mornay laughed at me again, a sound that could
have been pleasant in other circumstances. She nod-
ded at Perren.
"You'll cooperate," she told him. "You've put fif-
teen years of your life into this project. The risks
aren't so great that you'll abandon it and give up the
chance to bring total peace to the galaxy, are they?"
She turned to us again and deflated Perren's impor-
tance by talking about him as though he wasn't here.
156
"How would he go back to Vulcan and explain to his
family and his sponsors that he sacrificed galactic
unity to a theoretical risk? The humiliation would be
too great3'
Affected by the stalled logic and the danger of losing
Perren to Mornay's cooing, Sarda stepped forward to
address his mentor directly. "You must reconsider,
Perren," he said. "There are acceptable moral rea-
sons_?,
Mornay opened fire on him. Phaser-stun hit him full
in the chest, catapulting him backward over a table.
His arms and legs convulsed as he struck a wall.
Scanner plunged in to catch him, barely keeping him
from slamming to the floor. When I flinched toward
them Mornay moved between into my path. I could do
nothing but look on, quaking in the realization that the
Vulcan friend I'd come here to rescue was now a
tangled, tingling, !imp symbol of Mornay's violent
nature.
For a horrid instant as the phaser bolt struck Sarda,
I thought the weapon was set to kill. I hadn't come
here to get Sarda killed. The stun setting at least
proved that Mornay was sincere about using Sarda's
abilities again if she needed them. She wasn't ready to
kill him. Or perhaps that was for Perren's benefit. If he
hadn't been here, might she indeed have killed?
Her zeal to use that phaser kept the threat alive.
"You see?" she said. "I do not play." She warned
me off with a wave of the phaser. She must have seen
something, some active fury, in my eyes that even I
wasn't aware of. When she once again had control, she
eyed Perren. "Our goals will be realized. Things will
settle our way3'
Sensing the end of this dubious conversation, I
opened my mouth to say something, anything, that
would keep Mornay here and bfiy time for Captain
Kirk to act. My lips parted, and imagine my surprise
when I chirped like a communicator.
157
Every muscle in my body locked up.
Mornay blinked. "Of course!" she said. "Help from
outside! I should have expected that, shouldn't I?"
She turned to bark at one of the guards. "Find the
communicator and bring it to me."
Easily done. A moment later, Mornay possessed
both my communicator and Scanher's tricorder. She
chirped again. Kirk's signal! The check-in!
Scanner, still holding Sarda against his shoulder,
tried to contain the bugging of his eyes and delib-
erately bit his lip.
I pressed my knuckles into my thighs. Now what?
Mornay came to me and held up the communicator.
"Answer them. I'm sure you know what not to say."
There was hunger and victory in her tone. She was
about to find out who we were working with, how
powerful we were.
Sweat trickled down my neck. The captain would
give himseft away when I answered that signal. I
pressed my lips tight. My eyes stung.
Mornay caught the whiff of defiance. Without a
pause, she made dramatic affair of switching her
phaser to the "disrupt/kill" setting and turned it on
Scanner and Sarda. Her expression said the rest. I took the communicator from her.
Scanner tightened his grip on Sarda. "Piper..."
His message was clear enough. Find another way,
and fast.
There was no other way. Think fast--that's what
heroes do in these kinds of situations. So why was I
still clicking along at sublight? With a shallow breath, I
put my trust in the captain and flipped the antenna
shield up. "Piper here. Is that you, Merete?"
The name shot from my lips a little too sharply. I
could only hope Mornay would attribute it to my
nerves.
158
A faint shuffle from the receiving end accentuated
the tension as we waited for response. Then--
"Yes, this is Merete. Wh
ere are you, Piper?"
I took a deeper breath, all primed for a sigh of relief,
then remembered the sigh would tell Mornay some
thing. I stood there like a balloon, letting my breath
out so slowly that I started turning red. "We're in one
of the lab buildings," I said, stalling.
There was a pause. In my mind, a softly etched face
stood beside her and told her what to say.
"Have you isolated Sarda?" she asked carefully.
"He's... with us."
Mornay's phaser jerked toward my friends in warn-
ing. The hints would have to stop, or Scanner and
Sarda were finished. I'd never learned to lie, to bluff.
Why didn't the Academy have a class in bluffing?
"Can you get out?" Merete asked, her tone telling
me things.
"Not right away," I said. "The compound is booby-
trapped." I watched Mornay to see if I'd said too
much, but she didn't move. "It'll take time."
Another pause. Kirk's image nodded in my head.
"I'll contact you again in thirty minutes," Merete
said. "ff you've found a way out, we'll beam up and
vacate the system before Enterprise arrives. It's time
to haul in tight."
She had difficulty with the nautical phrase. She
didn't know where the emphasis should go. The words
were too even, too careful. But the message was real
he knows.
My shoulders trembled. I squeezed them tight and
brought the communicator closer to my lips. "I agree.
They've already worked our windward."
Mornay was practically under my chin in an instant.
Her phaser now hovered between my eyes, conveying
a message entirely different from Merete's. Sign off or
die.
159
Why bother talking out loud at all? These subliminal
messages, coming at me from a dozen different direc-
tions, were grating enough.
"Piper out," I said quickly, and closed the commu-
nicator.
Mornay snatched the instrument from my grip, her
fingernails raking the side of my hand. She backed
away. "Code words," she said bitterly. "And not even
subtle." Without a single consideration for the privacy
between the two Vulcans among us, she turned to
Perten and demanded, "Who is Merete?"
Perren, however, very much realized the unethical