Carol and Bart had not been relieved of their phasers. Each had their weapons out and was calling for the guards as the assassin looked down at Farhan Tanek and drew back.

The blade had passed through Tanek and buried itself in the wooden backing of his throne.

“Fare you well, little wraith,” Tanek said, touching his wristlet. The assassin screamed, and it was a man’s voice, clearly, as his body was pulled this way and that, finally shattering like a mirror before dissolving away into the unseen world.

The guards who burst into the room leveled their weapons at Carol and Bart, but were quickly dismissed by Tanek. “A test of your alertness, nothing more,” he told them. Shaken, the guards withdrew, once again sealing Bart and Carol into…an empty room?

“What is real, and what is illusion, have, by necessity, been placed on a need-to-know basis,” Tanek said.

“Multiple projections. More than one doppelgänger,” Bart said. “You’re not real.”

“Define reality.” Tanek struck his chest, the blow created a resounding thud. “The flesh and blood from which I was first willed into reality is elsewhere, yes. But even in this form, I could cripple or kill either of you if you were to incur my rage. As to willing into existence more than one version of oneself, that is an accomplishment that only I, so far as I’m aware, have had the strength and discipline to accomplish.”

“How did you get rid of the assassin?” Carol asked.

Tanek only smiled. “A short-range burst of the energies needed to nullify the weapon’s power. This is how I know a planetwide null field is possible.”

“This technology,” Bart said, “it could bring about an age unlike any your world has ever seen.”

Tanek rose and paced. “Ah, the less deadly uses, yes. It has been considered. Imagine a child is hurt in an accident, and only one physician in the world could save her. But he is occupied saving the life of another. With this technology, he could be in two places at once, performing two tasks at one time. The child would not die.”

Carol was surprised to hear anything other than talk of blood and death from the man.

“Or imagine an end to acts of passion,” Tanek said, his volume rising, the timbre of his voice becoming even more passionate, “murders which are, of course, perfectly legitimate and sanctioned provided the emotional state of all parties is properly aligned and the scrolls have decreed it a proper time for such an act…. Worthy individuals have passed from our annals because of being torn between their passion for more than one being. With this device, a man or woman could love and be loved by more than one at a given time, and how could there be jealousy, yes?”

I don’t know about that, Carol thought. But then, I know so little of these people….

Tanek stopped before Bart and Carol. “Your roles are quite simple, and, unfortunately, dictated by ancient prophecy. Your plaything here, this thin little male, is to help us decipher one section of the prototype’s plans that will allow the construction of a null field, rendering this device useless to all. Your Soloman will help configure that device. And you, Abramowitz, will assist in the ritual of Unity, in which the Varden and the heathen Nasnan will put aside their differences and at long last become one.”

“What about the prisoner?” Carol asked. “His name was not given in my report, but he is a Federation citizen, and his release—”

“That is negotiable only if it can be proven that he is not a murderer. Otherwise, he is subject to our laws and punishments. If your Federation attempts to interfere or intervene, there will be war between Vrinda and all your allied races.”

“Then…who is working to prove his innocence?”

Tanek stared at her blankly.

“Who defends this man, who seeks to uncover the truth?”

He merely frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t follow. His fate is in his own hands. He does not show remorse. He does not show elation at the kill. This makes him a Hollow, a killer without a soul. As of this moment, his guilt is proven in our eyes. He does nothing to defend himself. Why should that burden be placed on us?”

“You were about to commit genocide. He stopped you.”

Tanek continued to stare uncomprehendingly. “What of it?”

*   *   *

“Their passions run wild, they’re more animal than human, their ritualization, the foundations of their culture, is based on madness.” Carol stared down at the ugly mess she had been served as a late dinner. Bart sat across from her in a huge, empty room that looked like a mead hall of ancient Vikings.

Bart looked equally displeased with the stew of guts and other unmentionables bubbling before him. “Their species has achieved warp drive, but it seems more for the purpose of conquest and colonization than peaceful exploration and the expanding of cultural and intellectual horizons. Yet there is something here, something about them, that offers a promise that they might embrace reason, they might ascend beyond their aggressive mind-set, just as humankind and so many other races did long ago.”

“There’s more to this. So much more than has been revealed.”

“I agree. The identity of the prisoner, for one. Why would Starfleet keep it a secret from us?”

Carol set down her ladle. “I don’t know.” She rose from the table. “But now seems as good a time as any to find out.”

“What about this ceremony? You are to officiate, yet—”

“It can wait,” Carol said, storming away.

“Carol, it’s this time tomorrow!”

She slammed at the wooden doors to get the attention of the guards posted on the other side. “Then by this time tomorrow, I’ll be ready.”

*   *   *

It took until dawn for Carol to negotiate an audience with the prisoner. By the time she was taken to his antiseptic steel chamber eight floors beneath the keep, she had come to wonder if she had somehow passed from one state of reality to another. The design of this underground prison was patterned after one used on a dozen war-worlds, and there was no trace of “medievalism” to it. Every cell on this, the lowest level, was empty, save one.

A man sat in the bright recesses of the cell. Tall, dark-haired, haggard, but possessed of a sly smile and a near-boundless reserve of contempt.

Martin Mansur. Her hated rival.

“What took you?” he asked.

The guards left her with him, an invisible wall of energy separating them.

“So,” Carol said, “it’s a question of scandal.”

Martin’s smile was as smug as ever. “Even you can’t think things are that simple and straightforward. Not after being around these people for any length of time.”

“You’re an important symbol for Starfleet. So far as most people are concerned, you teach independence, existence without self-limitations. You and I know better, but that’s not the point. So what are you doing here, anyway?”

Martin eased himself back against the wall of his cell. It was lit by some inner fire, just like the floors and ceiling. His clothing was white, pure, just like the sheets on his cot and the waste disposal device set discreetly in the corner.

He laughed, taking in her discomfort. “Why am I here? Um—because I got caught?”

“You know what I mean. Why did you come to Vrinda in the first place?”

“Well, you know what they say. You’re only as good as your last big triumph.” His smile faded, but only a little. “It’s been some time for me. I have competition. I’m not about to retire, not at my age—”

“So you were out to prove something,” Carol said.

“Again, things are not so simple.”

“A man is dead,” Carol said. “Did you kill him?”

Martin said nothing. His expression didn’t change. He was too well versed in neurolinguistics to reveal himself in any way through conventional body language. There would be no looking to the left when he was lying or looking to the right when he was telling the truth. No concealing of his thumbs to indicate he was concealing other information. None of the thousand “tells” that she knew so well, which also made her a lousy choice for a poker-playing partner…and a cynic when it came to human nature.

“All right, I’ll ask another question. Why disrupt the natural order of a world that isn’t even Federation aligned?”

“Why? That’s simple enough. If your skills were as sharp as you say they are, there would be no need for explanation from me.”

Carol barely had to think twice about it. “This is all about your standing in the community. Your fame. That’s all you think about.”

“Oh, but you do go on. The question is, are we really so different? Is the life you have the one you really wanted, or just your way of dealing with disappointment, of trying to be someone, anyone, rather than owning up to your failures.”

“You mean when I trusted you.”

“Exactly. Look at the basis of the work you claim I took from you: Trust no one, depend on no one, but yourself.”

“Yet here you are, depending on me.”

“No. Here I am, knowing full well that you will follow the dictates of your nature—that you are weak. You were afraid to go forward with your findings. Left up to you, they would have sat in a drawer all these years. Even now, you don’t have the courage to own your own mistakes. You have to have a ‘bad guy.’ Your weakness is your enemy.”

“Maybe I was wrong in what I believed,” Carol said.

Martin gestured expansively. “Maybe you were. I never said I agreed or disagreed with your notions, only that I felt they had merit. In other words, profitability. A universal enough statement that those in need of a moral compass, those, like you, who are weak, would seize upon in droves. And in that, I was correct.”

Carol nearly staggered under the weight of the sudden realization that struck her hard and fast. “You don’t care if these people go to war. You don’t care if they all die.”

“I ‘care,’ as you put it, in terms of how it will affect me. This prison is proof from the weapon they’ve created. None of the ghosts can enter here. And if they employ any of the conventional weapons they already possess in mass quantities, I’ll also be safe from the blast and radioactive side effects.”

“But you’ll starve.”

“Not at all. I could leave this cell and get to the mess any time I wish.”

Carol didn’t bother to ask how this was possible. “You knew they’d send me.”

“I was counting on it. I knew that if I canceled my appearance at the conference, you would be en route there when this situation turned critical. That would make you the only likely choice.”

Carol’s anger was boiling over. “Why?”

“It’s a win-win for me. If you succeed and help this ceremony of joining to go off without a hitch, if the null-field device is installed, and so on, I will be given a slap on the wrist by Starfleet for my actions, but lauded publicly as the savior of this world. If you fail, you’ll die, everyone dies, but me. I lose nothing either way. I only stand to gain.”

“I could kill you myself,” Carol murmured. Even as she spoke, she was shocked that such a thought would cross her mind, let alone leave her lips. Hadn’t she seen enough death on Galvan VI?

Again, Martin smiled. He had goaded her well. “You could. But you won’t. Too weak. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a paper I’m writing in my head, and I really must keep on schedule.”

With that, he sat on his cot, closed his eyes, and tuned her out.