"Please!" Stiles laughed. "Don't finish that! I smell a clich?"

Spock rewarded him with that hint of a smile and a very slight bow. "I stand rebuked."

Bewildered and amazed that he was actually smiling, Stiles sighed roughly and looked down at the utility phaser in his hand. He aimed it, but not at the wall. Instead, he pointed its bluntly conical nose in a completely illogical direction.

The amba.s.sador looked at the concrete floor. "Where are we going?" "Sir, we're going straight down."

And the cell lit up in a million lights, and the floor blew up, and the ceiling shredded. And Eric Stiles was in charge.

Chapter Twenty-two.

BLISTERING HEAT SHOT through the cell. Pressure struck Stiles from all sides and spun him silly. The floor tilted, then disappeared under his feet and gravity dragged him down. It almost felt like a Constrictor.

He struck the griddle of hot rock with his right hipbone and sc.r.a.ped down fifteen feet until a carpet of muck received him up to the ankles. Somehow he managed to stay on his feet, leaning sideways on a nubby slab that was suddenly very familiar. Funny how the years rushed up to remind him of things.

Took out too much of the floor-probably shouldn't have used the full-destruct setting. Too late now.

"Where's the phaser? Oh, I still got it. Couldn't feel my hand...."

No wonder. His whole forearm was tingling. Probably b.u.mped the funny bone. His fingers had convulsed around the utility phaser, luckily, and he still had it. He craned his neck to look up at the hole they'd created. Had anybody heard the cracking and crashing of stone? There hadn't been a blast noise, instead just the whine of the phaser before the rock cracked. If there wasn't a guard on the floor, maybe the crash hadn't been noticed. Please, please, please. Where was the amba.s.sador?

Not waiting for his eyes to adjust, Stiles glanced around in the dimness, then started pawing at the broken flooring. Six feet away, the rocks shifted. Springing over there, Stiles tripped and landed on a knee. Recovering, he dug until a Vulcan ear appeared, luckily still attached to a Vulcan head. "Sir!" he called.

Now, how would this look! Eric Stiles, the man who let First Officer Spock get buried alive!

The rabble scratched his hands. Some of the stones were hot to the touch as he pushed them off the amba.s.sador. "Sir? Are you hurt?"

Dust and pebbles sheeted into the muck and Spock sat up. "Quite well, thank you... where are we?"

Stretching off to both sides of them, bending into infinity not far away, the octagonal pa.s.sageway was lit only by mediocre pencils of light through wrist-width drainage holes. Stiles knew that they could only see at all because the sun was almost directly overhead and the sky had cleared. In another couple of hours, the tunnels would be pitch dark.

"It's a network of tunnels. We built them fight after my first Constrictor. The civil engineers thought the gravity effect would be lessened by a layer of planet strata and that maybe people could hide below, but it didn't work. They were deathtraps. Eventually we just gave up and sealed them. I used to imagine using it to escape." "Why didn't you?" "And go where?" "Mmm... pardon me."

"I couldn't get off the planet and n.o.body would help an alien. And I didn't exactly have a way of cutting through the floor either."

Spock accepted Stiles's support as he got carefully to his feet and tested his injured leg. "How long do you suppose our escape will go undiscovered?"

"Depends on whether Orsova wants to auction off a visit now or later. We'll know, because we'll hear the alarms go off. Until then, we can just make our way through to the freshwater ducts and get out. Darker in here than I remembered... looks like the roots are getting in too. Watch your step, Amba.s.sador. With that comm link implant, can you tell me the direction the CST is in?"

"Yes." Spock paused a moment, and even though it seemed that he was doing something psychic, Stiles knew there was nothing like that going on. "East northeast... by north. Four miles... one eighth." "East by-four miles from here?" "Yes." "Are you sure about that?" "Very." "Perfect. I know just what they're doing." "Why do you ask?" "Because we're splitting up." "That may not be wise," Spock protested.

"Well, it wouldn't be my first time," Stiles flatly told him, and left no room for alternatives. "Come this way."

Picking through the crushed flooring into the muck-layered tunnel bottom, even with Spock's bad leg they moved along faster than Stiles expected. The stink was incredible. Heavy roots searched their way down from the surface, hairlike ancillary tendrils unbroken until his hand tore them away, proving that no one had come down here in years. He led Spock in a direction he knew the search would never go if they were discovered gone. That was the plan, all part of where he had told Travis to bring the ship down-away from the mountains, which was the natural place to hide. Hmm... been thinking ahead all this time and never knew it.

"Up at that intersection there," he said to Spock, "you go left. You'll be able to get out in about a half mile. That's where the munic.i.p.al slab ends. I'll go to the right and find Zevon and catch up, and I'll be better alone in case it's a trap. All due respect, you'll slow me down and I'm tired of being slow. I'm sorry if this isn't what you had in mind." "I had nothing in mind." What'd he say? Must be clogged ears. Didn't hear fight. Stiles looked over his shoulder, seeing only the gray silhouette of the Vulcan two steps back. As he held aside a thick root for the amba.s.sador to step by, he heard that sentence again in his head and finally just asked.

"You didn't have a plan? I thought the great amazing Mr. Spock always had a plan."

The amba.s.sador tipped his head in a kind of shrug and spoke as they picked their way along.

"You remember what I told you about captains. I know my shortcomings. Discipline can be limiting. This is why Vulcans, with all our stringent codes of behavior, have not generally prevailed as great leaders, and humans, with your elastic spirits, have. I've learned over the years to provide information and opportunity, then step aside and rely upon the more vibrant among us for actual tactics. I hoped you would rise to the occasion." "Are you saying," Stiles marveled, "you just fake it?"

In a shaft of light from a drain hole, Spock's black eyes flickered smartly. "No. I trusted you to fake it."

The amba.s.sador offered that canny look for several seconds without even taking a step. Apparently he wanted a point made.

Overwhelmed, Stiles hovered in the middle of a step. Only a brainless drizzle of water somewhere in the underground system drew him out of his amazement and reminded him of what had to be done, and done soon.

"Said Frankenstein to the monster," he cracked. "Bear left and you'll get out. Once you get outside, keep to the low trail. They'll be looking high first, the way to the mountains. We'll rendezvous east northeast at the lake."

Spock reached out to grasp a root, ready to pull himself forward. "Aye aye, captain."

Flushed with delight and newly emboldened, Stiles looked up and laughed. "Thanks!"

Beverly Crusher took her latest series of biological readings on the shuddering body of the Romulan empress, and compared them with the readings from one hour ago. In the room, only the snap of the fireplace and the bleep of Data's computer, as he processed more information and sent what they had discovered onward to the other physicians across the empire, could be heard. There was not that much more that could be done.

For days now she had kept the empress and dozens of others alive by treating the symptoms. Over the past day, success had noticeably shrunk.

Crasher sat back, exhausted, and pressed her hands to the sides of her head. As she squeezed, her eyes throbbed and her thoughts bundled up into a lump. When she put her hands down, they were holding the only thought left that made sense.

She turned on her chair and sighed. Data noticed the movement and looked around at her. Over on the couch, still battered and b.l.o.o.d.y from the earlier encounter, Sentinel Iavo sat alone with his own guilts and troubles. He'd hardly moved all day.

"Time for drastic measures" Crusher told him. "She's not making it. She's slipping away. I can't hold on to her life much longer. Are you ready to do what I ask?"

A destroyed man, Iavo's face had paled and his eyes were sunken with weariness. "Anything."

Satisfied, Crusher stood up and strode to him. "This is what I want. You're going to get me a fast ship with an escort battalion. I don't want any trouble at the border. I'm taking the empress into s.p.a.ce to hook up with Dr. McCoy and a treatment serum." "There is no such serum," Iavo protested. "Is there?" "There may be. If she is to have any chance, we have to go." "Go where? Who has this serum?"

"I'll give you the course once we're s.p.a.ceborne. I don't want to take any more chances than that. Once again, Sentinel, you have a choice to make. Who's side are you going to be on for the next few hours?"

Iavo stood up, wavered briefly, and clearly noted that Data also came to his feet behind Crusher.

"Your wisdom and silence have given me a new life," Iavo confirmed. "I will help you save hers. Tell me where you wish to go."

The air seemed a bit too cool in the lab office today. Zevon had thought about turning the heat up several times, but had regularly been distracted by suggestions pouring in from the students at Regional Spectroscopy. He had been reading them all day, between adjustments. The deflectors required almost daily adjustments now. Each adjustment worried him a faction more. The network of deflection stations operated fairly well, though only fairly. He had able technicians working the grid, but not skilled scientists. Several more years would go by before anyone on this planet was skilled enough in quantum physics and s.p.a.ce science to replace Zevon's own advanced abilities. He was in a race now, a slow and deliberate race to the next Constrictor.

Some of these students had promise. There were occasional glimmers of hope beyond the daily push and grind. If be had more freedom to move about on the planet-An old argument. Orsova's reins were tight upon Zevon. Their mutuality was fragile. He dared not jar it.

A long morning. The afternoon stretched before him with a dozen problems. The electrical system in the complex had begun having fits a few minutes ago, and he could do nothing effective with the Constrictor system if the power kept blinking.

Perhaps he could accomplish something by remote while he waited. Yes, that would be better.

His chair rolled slightly under him as he reached to the corner of his desk and keyed the external communications system, touching the autochannel. "Sykora, are you there?" "l just arrived. You nearly missed me." "Did you visit the physician?"

"They can do nothing for me here. I'll tend myself as I always have." "Sykora.."

"I'm much stronger today. The welts are responding a little to the poultice l made yesterday. If only I had-" "You're not a nurse, you know."

"On this planet, I am all there is for us. Would you like to argue now or later?"

"Later, I suppose. Would it be possible for you to route yesterday's matter-discharge telemetry readings to Light Geologics at Laateh Mountain?" "Are you certain I have them here?" "Certain beyond life."

"I suppose that means I have them here. Give me time to arrange the files for relay."

"You'll have it. For some reason, several power centers in the complex have failed. They're tracking the source." "Why would several fail at once?"

"I hesitated to ask. It's enough that I must handle satellite electrical problems. If I begin solving local ones, I may forget to adjust the deflector grid." "I would never let you forget." "I owe you my happiness."

"Yes, you do. Who else would cook you Romulan dinners to keep you from choking on the pathetic Pojjana palate?"

Zevon smiled. "No one on this rock. I shall signal you with the relay channel as soon as the power returns." "What do they say on a ship?-Affirmative?" "Affirmative, they say 'affirmative.' Are you-"

He never finished his question. The communications system crackled suddenly as if he'd put his hand into the den of a spitting animal. Almost as abruptly, it went dead. "Sykora? Do you read?" Nothing. He tried a reroute of the local flow. "Sykora?"

But there was still nothing. The system lay quiet. Someone would get to it.

Ah-there were the alarms from the central bunkers. Would the alarms go off for an electrical power failure? Strange. Power didn't even go off after a Constrictor anymore. He'd made sure of that. Perhaps some work was being done somewhere. He should've been notified. He thought about calling to ask, but how could he call? "Possibly the reason for the chill," he murmured to himself, and slipped into the leather-fringed chenille cardigan Sykora had given him at the precinct bazaar last year. The six shades of moss green, brushed soft as moss itself, threaded with dyed leather, comforted him when things went wrong. He liked to see the cardigan hanging on the wall hook next to his desk even better than wearing it. When he had it on, he couldn't see it so well.

However, today it would keep him warm. He pulled it over his shoulders, hitched it into place-awkward, since he was still sitting down and apparently too lazy to stand and began tying the leather lacings over his chest.

A green chenille Pojjana cardigan with dyed leather lacings, leather lacings threaded through his shoulderlength hair... there was so little left of him from that other life, he could no longer find hints of the times before. Only speaking to Sykom occasionally reminded him that he had ever lived anywhere else.

Through the closed window, he could still hear the alarms going off. Possibly there was some trouble. A revolt, perhaps. They still happened sometimes, after a Constrictor, in fear of the next one. He could hide here, in retreat from such mundane troubles, and do his science, battling the next Constrictor in his own way. He hadn't won yet, but the enemy feared him.

Someone was pounding up the stairway down the hall. Through the old walls of his office he could hear the clop-clop of boots on the wooden stairs. Good. That meant someone else was as bothered by the electrical burping as he was. Only when the footsteps pounded up the corridor toward his office did he look at the door in wonder. Why would the maintenance team come to this end of the hall?

The door rattled as if someone had kicked it, but did not open at first. Then, it did. It blew open as if knocked by a hard wind.

A thousand times Zevon had seen this instant in his mind, played out in a dozen ways, and it still surprised him. "Eric? he gasped.

The years crumbled and dissolved as they stared at each other, comparing what they used to look like with what they looked like now. Zevon knew he must look different. His hair was longer, thonged with the tiny leather strips many Pojjana wore... but as a Romulan, eleven years meant less to him than it had to Eric Stiles.

Zevon's long-ago friend looked like neither a rosy-cheeked boy nor a dying waif, the only two personae Zevon had ever seen. He was a healthy man now, more slender, less clumsy, his blond hair a shade darker, his face clean-shaven. He still wore a Starfleet uniform, but of a new design. There were unborn weed pods stuck to the side of his trouserleg, and drying muck on his boots.

Scarcely able to breathe, Zevon clasped the arm of his chair with one hand and the side of his desk with the other.

Eric's chest heaved from running, from climbing the stairs, and whatever other trials had brought him here. Behind their communion of astonished gawking, the alarms rang and rang in the main complex. "So I'm a little late," he flipped. "So what?"

Zevon pushed himself around a little more to face him, but still could not find the power to stand up.

Seeing that, Eric simply stepped to him, took his arm, and drew him to his feet. "Let's go."

Zevon came to his feet and gripped Eric's arms in a waltz of amazement and disbelief. "You look-you look-"

"Yeah, got a shave too." Between his fingers Eric spun a piece of the fringe on Zevon's decorated vest. "You look like one of those goofy dancers at the Spring Cotillion when they used to make us work the kitchen. I know you gotta get along here, but do you gotta wear their clothes?" "I like these clothes." "Great. Bring 'em along. We're leaving."

Not really surprised, Zevon did find himself startled by the abruptness of the demand. How could he possibly begin to explain? "No, I can't go." "Yes, you can. Come on."

"No-I must not leave the planet." He drew back with some force as he realized the serious intentions of what seemed ridiculous. "Eric, I have plans-get your hands off me, Eric!"

"I haven't got time to argue." Eric let go of him, as requested, but instead raised his other hand and aimed a small black device directly at Zevon. Zevon threw both hands up. "No, no!"

In the same instant a pop of yellow light blinded him. He felt his head snap back and his body convulse. His senses spun wild. His knees buckled, but he never felt the floor strike him. A jostling sensation-his eyes were still open enough to see the ceiling reel, the light flop about, and deliberate movement at his side. His own moan of protest boomed in his head. Voluntary movement sank away.

Through the thickness of semiconsciousness Zevon heard the voice that had come to him so many times in the broken hours of early morning.

"Plenty of seats down in front. Welcome to the opening night of 'Prepare for the Worst,' starring the always effervescent Eric John Stiles. Reset your phasers and enjoy the show"

"Zevon... Zevon. Wake up. It's only light stun. Come out of it. You'll feel better in a few minutes."

Some kind of bird cawed in the high tangled roots overhead. The surroundings were ridiculous, an oasis of picnic quality, trying to tell them nothing was wrong and they could just sit here and maybe take a nap.

In the distance, though, more than two miles away, the alarms of the prison still hooted through the open sky. They'd seen airborne patrols sprint from the city toward the mountains, and at least two spotter planes veer toward the valley. None yet angled toward the swamp. Most escapees had more sense than to come in this direction, at least not first.

Stiles glanced around to make sure there was enough root canopy over them that a spotter couldn't easily see them. He knew that if a plane got close enough the infrared scanners would pick up the heat off the tops of their heads. There was nothing to be done about that if it happened.

Zevon lay in a cradle of velvet-coated roots, the kind that were about to plunge into the nearest puddle and release their spores. Till then they were a bony cushion that offered a few minutes' rest. Stiles sat with him, absorbing the leather threads in his head and the Pojjana cardigan, pleased that at least Zevon didn't seem to be starving anymore. They were at least clothing and feeding him for all he'd done for them.

Still drowsy, Zevon gazed at him warmly, with shieldless affection and relief that they were both alive to have this reunion.

"Eric..." He smiled again.

Stiles smiled back, knowing the drug of phaser stun was giving them this uncrystallized and uncluttered moment. His hand closed on Zevon's wrist as it had that last day so long ago. For a moment there was nothing around them, no planet, no problems, no past or future troubles to distract them. Certainly nothing to drive them apart anymore.

Gradually, though, inevitably, Zevon's perceptions cleared and he shifted his shoulders. They held onto each other, absorbing the wondrous confirmation that neither was dead, as each certainly had entertained in the troubling hours before sleep.

"I didn't think you'd even speak to me," Stiles attempted. His voice cracked on the last couple of words.

Zevon rewarded him with a kind of glow in his eyes. "Why would I not?" "Well, I am a little late ...." "Yes, you are." "I swear, I thought they got you out." "I know you did. Why did you stun me?" "Oh, because you resisted my charms."

Taking a better grip on Zevon's arm, Stiles helped him sit up and lean against a particularly large and ancient root. Nauseated, Zevon closed his eyes briefly, fielding a wave of dizziness from the change of position. "Are you okay?" Stiles asked. Zevon leered at him with unfocused eyes and finally a clearing head. A perception of irony brought the faintest of smiles. "Yes, Eric, I'm okay?'

The buzz of distant aircraft funneled down to them from the foothills. Stiles didn't look away as the awkward moment pa.s.sed between them. "So," he began, "how y'been?"

With a grimace of irony and another smile, Zevon sat up and shook pods from his hair. "I've been busy." His face patterned by the shadows of roots overhead, he blinked into the sinking sun. "Where have you taken me?"

"We're out on the swamp flats. Cuffo Lake's a mile or so that way. I was hoping you'd come around so I didn't have to carry you any more. We're under cover, at least."

Another shadow came over them, this one long, crisp, and near. Stiles didn't look around. He knew. "This is Amba.s.sador Spock," he said to Zevon.

Zevon peered up at Spock, fitted the puzzle pieces into place, and accepted what he saw. He bowed his head courteously. "Your fame precedes you. I am honored." Spock returned the gesture. "As am I, your Excellency." "Centurion, please." "As you wish."