No one except Kellein. Try as he might, Kahless couldn't find her body. It gave rise to a single, reckless hope.

Perhaps she had eluded Molor's hand. Perhaps she had been away at the time. Or she had seen the tyrant's forces in time to hide herself.

Perhaps, against all odds, she still lived.

Kahless felt a hand on his shoulder. Whirling, he saw that it was only Morath. But his friend had a grim expression on his face, even grimmer than was called for.

Suddenly, the outlaw knew why, and his heart plummeted. "Kellein ... ?" he rasped, his throat dry with grief.

Morath nodded. "Upstairs," he said.

Rushing past him, staggering under his load of anguish, Kahless left the feast hall and found the steps that led to the higher floors. His men, who had been searching the place while he lingered downstairs, stood aside for him as he barreled his way up.

At the head of the stair, he found her. She was sprawled in a pool of dried blood, a sword still clasped tight in her hand.

Kellein's eyes were closed, as if she were only sleeping.

But her skin was pale and translucent as pherza wax, and there was a track of blackened gore from the corner of her mouth to the line of her jaw.

The outlaw didn't have the heart to inspect her wounds. Slowly, carefully, he touched his fingertips to her lips. They were cold and stiff as stone. Sorrow rose up in him like a flood.

Only then did he notice the thong around her neck and reach inside her tunic to take out her jinaq amulet.

Cradled in his hand, it sparkled gaily in the light from a nearby window, affirming her vow.

Clumsily, with fingers that barely seemed alive, Kahless took out his own amulet and held it beside hers. As intended, they were identical. He and Kellein had planned to wear them at their mating ceremony.

Without meaning to, he began whispering the words he would have spoken. "I pledge my heart and my hand to you, Kellein, daughter of Vathraq, and no other. I am your mate for the rest of my days."

They were more than words to him, though his beloved had pa.s.sed through the gates of Death. Kahless knew then and there he would never take another mate as long as he lived.

Indeed, why live at all? Why bother? With Kellein gone, what was there to live for?

Nothing, the outlaw screamed in the darkness of his despair. "Nothing!" he bellowed, making the hallway ring with his anger and his pain.

Blind with bitterness, Kahless drew his sword from his belt and raised it high above his head. Then, with all his strength, he hacked at the floor beside Kellein. One, twice, and again, raising white-hot sparks, until the gray metal of the blade finally relented and shattered on the stones.

The pieces skipped this way and that, then were still. As still as Kellein, Kahless raged. As still as the heart inside him.

Delirious, writhing inside with agony, he fled. Down the stairs, out of the antechamber and across the blindingly bright courtyard. He staggered past the corpses of Vathraq's defenders, through the gates to the walled town, and out to the river road.

His s 'tarahk stood there with nervous though it didn't know when it saw him coming.

With a growl, he threw himself into the saddle and dug his heels into the animal's sides. Startled, it bolted forward, taking him down the road as fast as it could carry him.

He didn't know where he was going or why. He just knew he wanted to die before he got there.

all the others, taut and why. It raised its head The Modern Age Kurn's estate on Ogat wasn't far from the academy. As dusk fell, Picard stood in its rambling main hall, a mug of tea warming his hands. He stared out a window at the darkening sky.

Several silvery shapes, each too big and irregularly shaped to be a star, reflected the light of the homeworld's sun. Testimonies, the captain mused, to the Klingon tendency to fragment themselves at every opportunity.

Once, more than seventy-five years ago, there had been a moon in these heavens. Called Praxis, it supplied the Klingons with more than three-fourths of their energy resources. Then, due to years of overmining and insufficient safety precautions, a reactor explodedcontaminating the homeworld's atmosphere, poking great holes in its delicate ozone layer, and creating a quirk in its...o...b..t.

Klingon scientists had turned pale as they antic.i.p.ated the result. In half a century, Qo'noSo would have become a lifeless husk, abandoned by its people. Of course, there were ways to save it, to preserve Klingon culture and tradition. But they were expensive ways-made implausible by the size of the Klingons" military budget.

There was but one option. The High Council opened a dialogue with the Federation, aiming for peace between the two s.p.a.cefaring ent.i.ties. Once that was accomplished, funds could be diverted from military uses to the rescue of the homeworld.

As it turned out, peace was not an easy row to hoe.

Factions in both the Klingon hierarchy and the Federation tried to halt the process at every turn. There was considerable hardship, considerable violence. Nonetheless, by dint of courage and tolerance and hard work, a treaty was signed.

There would be peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. But that didn't mean the Klingons would stop warring with each other. Not by a long shot.

Over the next seventy-five years, the complexion of the High Council changed again and again. The story was always the same-some rising power challenging an established one at the point of a sharpened battelth. And no sooner was the upstart ensconced on the council than some newcomer appeared to challenge him.

As a young man, Picard had heard about the Klingons' overwhelming thirst for power, which made them tear at each other like ravening beasts. He had accepted it, but he had never truly understood it.

Now, he understood it all too well. It wasn't power that motivated the Klingons so much as instinct. It was in their nature to fight. If they couldn't battle an outside foe, they would battle each other.

Hence, this conspiracy to overthrow Gowron, which had begun to carve its b.l.o.o.d.y path to the council chamber. Perhaps the captain would not have been so angered by it, perhaps he could have accepted it better, if its victims had not been innocent children.

Turning, he saw Worf and Kahless standing by the hearth, staring into its flames. Picard could only imagine what they saw there.

Chaos? Destruction? The deaths of mult.i.tudes? Or the irresistible glory of battle? Even in his officer's case, he wasn't entirely sure.

Abruptly, the doors to the chamber opened and Kurn returned to them. Closing the doors behind him, he glanced at the captain.

"As you suggested," he said, "I've arranged with Rajuc to report my death in the explosion. Also, the deaths of several other adults. With luck, our enemies will believe you three perished as well."

Kahless nodded. "Well done, Kurn. If they think we're dead, they will lower their guards. And it will give us the opportunity to strike."

"Yes," the master of the house agreed. "But strike how, my friend? Where do we begin?"

The clone made a sound of disgust. "I had entertained the hope you could speak to Gowron for us. I thought you would have his ear."

Kurn shook his head. "Gowron has changed. He has forgotten who supported him when the House of Duras went for his head. I no longer understand what he is thinking half the time."

"Surely," said Picard, "the firebombing of the academy should be enough to arouse his suspicions."

"He will say it could have been an accident," Kurn argued. "Or the work of someone other than a conspirator."

"Still," Worf maintained, "if we had proof, he would have to act on it. He would have no choice."

"Yes," Kahless agreed. "Something he can hold in his hands. Something tangible. But then, obtaining such proof has been our problem all along."

"Something tangible," the governor echoed.

There was silence for a moment. Picard was at a loss as to how to proceed. So were the others, apparently.

Finally, it was Worf who spoke. "If there was a bomb," he said slowly, still honing the idea in his own mind, "there will be fragments of it in the academy's wreckage.

And while they are not the sort of proof we are looking for, they may provide us with a way to obtain that proof."

Kahless's eyes burned. He nodded. So did Kurn.

Unfortunately, the captain didn't quite know what Worf was talking about. But he imagined he was about to learn.

The broad, powerful leader of the conspiracy made his way through the hot, swirling mists of the cavern, his only garb a linen loincloth. The mists stank of sulfur and iron and the pungent lichen that grew here, and they were like fire on his skin.

But those who frequented the steambaths of Onaja'bur lived years longer than their peers. Or so it was saidmostly, the conspirator suspected, by the crafty merchants in the town down the hill, which profited greatly from the armies of visitors.

Of course, the conspirator had never put much credence in the tales about the baths. He would never have come here strictly out of concern for his health. Rather, it was the need for a meeting place far from the scrutiny of others that had drawn him here.

Not too long ago, he would have considered conferring with his comrades at the dining hall in Tolar'tu. But clearly, that was no longer an option. When his comrades were discovered there, it had rendered that venue useless to all of them.

Nor would this one be any more useful, were it not for the lack of visitors to the baths at this time of year. After all, they needed their privacy as well as their anonymity.

The conspirator sat and waited, as far from the batterypowered safety globes as possible. They were only vague, blue-white b.a.l.l.s of incandescence in the distance. Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long before he saw a figure emerge from the mists.

It was Lomakh, looking thinner and considerably less distinguished in his loincloth than in his body armor. But then, the conspirator thought, that was probably true of everyone-himself included.

Lomakh inclined his head. "I am glad you could come," he said, his voice as harsh as ever, even subdued in a whisper.

"Likewise," said the conspirator. And then, because he was not by nature a very patient individual: "What news do you have?"

His companion sat down beside him. "Good news, most likely."

"Most likely?" the conspirator echoed.

Lomakh shook his head. "The groundskeeper at the academy, the one we hired to plant the bombs?"

"Yes? What about him?"

"He was killed in the explosion, the idiot. Therefore, we have not been able to corroborate the deaths of our enemies."

The conspirator cursed. Some little thing was always going wrong. "What of our sources elsewhere on Ogat?"

"Those, at least, seem to confirm that our action was successful. So far as they can tell, Kahless and his friends are no more."

The conspirator relaxed somewhat-but not completely. "Continue your investigation," he said, "but keep it discreet. We don't want to give ourselves away as we did before."

Lomakh scowled at that. "It was the sheerest coincidence that Kahless spotted us in that dining hall."

"Of course it was," he replied, allowing a note of irony to creep into his voice. "I just want to make sure there are no further coincidences."

As it happened, Fate had been their friend as well as their enemy. After a couple of days of their dining-hall meetings, Lomakh had realized that he and Kardem were being watched, and had arranged for the watcher to be killed by street mercenaries.

But that was the day the watcher's allies had chosen to show up. In the melee that followed, one of them was revealed as a human-a human called "captain" by a comrade.

Few humans had ever set foot on Qo'noS. One of them, the famous Arbiter of Succession, fit the description provided by the street mercenaries. And of course, he was the captain of the Enterprise.

What's more, if Jean-Luc Picard was on the homeworld, could his Lieutenant Worf have been far behind?

And would they not have enlisted the aid of Worf's brother Kurn in short order?

Still, it was not clear who had summoned them-who the mysterious, cowled watcher was in the dining halluntil they had gotten word from one of their sources at Gowron's court.

Apparently, the Kahless clone had come to the council leader with some interesting suspicions. But from what their spy could gather, Gowron had declined to help, asking for some proof of the so-called conspiracy.

Would Kahless have given up, then? Allowed a plot of some consequence to hatch without his doing something about it? Certainly not. But where else could he have gone for help?

To the captain of the Enterprise, perhaps? It made some sense. And it went a long way toward explaining Picard's presence in Tolar'tu.

Just in case, the conspirators had determined Kurn's schedule and planted their firebombs wherever they could-knowing the governor's estate was too wellguarded for them to reach him there. As a result, the academy hadn't been the only place targeted for destruction-just the place where Kurn had received his visitors.

With luck, their other bombs would go unused. But the leader of the conspiracy wasn't quite ready to concede that.

He sighed. "Even if we were successful on Ogat, Kahless may have managed to spread word of his suspicions.

There may be others working against us even as we speak."

fi Then we will find them," said Lomakh. He closed his ngers into a fist and squeezed. "And we will crush them."

"No," the conspirator declared. "That is not enough.

We must speed things up, if we are to accomplish our objective."

The other Klingon looked at him. "How much faster can we go, my lord? it is a tricky thing, this reshaping of public opinion-especially when it involves as beloved a figure as Kahless."

The conspirator had to acknowledge the wisdom of that. When the clone's death became common knowledge, he would become an even tougher adversary. Nothing was harder to fight than a memory.

He peered into the mists, as if seeking an answer there.

"Nonetheless, there must be a way to accelerate our plan."

Lomakh grunted. "We cannot tamper with the testing of the scroll, if that is what you mean. If it proves authentic, as we believe it will, the finding must be beyond reproach."

The conspirator bit his lip. His companion had a point.

Yet there had to be something they could do besides bide their time. Perhaps it would take some time to think of it.

As he thought this, he saw two vague figures striding through the sulfurous mists. Not toward them exactly, but close enough to overhear their conversation. The conspirator felt his aw clench.

He did not wish to invite any more exposure. They had had more than their share already and been fortunate to get away with it. With a glance, he informed Lomakh that their meeting was over. Nor was Lomakh inclined to protest, silently or otherwise.

Instead, he got up and walked away, pretending they didn't know each other at all. A moment or two later, he vanished like a wraith into the roiling clouds of steam.