STAR TREK - TOS - 18 - Rihannsu 1 - My Enemy, My Ally

VIP免费
2024-12-20 1 0 496.48KB 155 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
Scanned by Highroller.
Proofed by Wordsmith.
Made prettier by use of EBook Design Group Stylesheet.
My Enemy, My Ally
by
Diane Duane
Contents
Dedication.4
Acknowledgements.5
Chapter One.7
Chapter Two.11
Chapter Three.19
Chapter Four22
Chapter Five.30
Chapter Six.33
Chapter Seven.39
Chapter Eight43
Chapter Nine.46
Chapter Ten.52
Chapter Eleven.57
Chapter Twelve.67
Chapter Thirteen.76
Chapter Fourteen.84
Chapter Fifteen.88
Chapter Sixteen.94
Chapter Seventeen.98
Chapter Eighteen.103
Chapter Nineteen.110
Dedication
To Ael's godmother—
"—cara mihi ante alias;
neque enim novus iste Dianae
venit amor, subitaque
animum dulcedine movit—"
—arma eraeque canõ!
Acknowledgements
Sometimes people can be of incredible assistance to you without saying a word. This is the place to
acknowledge one such contributor, whose simple existence made writing this book easier: the stately,
sharp-minded, wonderful Dorothy Fontana (or "D.C." Fontana, as some of you may know her). Dorothy
has in the past done me many amazing and undeserved kindnesses—but the one most in my mind at this
writing is the one she did for you too (if you loveStar Trek ) during her stint as the series' story editor,
and as writer of some of its best stories.
Dorothy knows Vulcans and Romulans better than anyone else, having been intimately involved with
their creation. Much of her vision of those enigmatic and delightful species—as creatures as complex as
any other hominid, not mere logic-boxes or disposable hostiles to be shot up and forgotten
about—informs this work, and I delight to add that influence to the list of my glad debts to her. When we
think of the power that Leonard Nimoy and Mark Lenard have brought to the Vulcans and Romulans
they've played, let's not leave D.C. out of the reckoning. Without her, Spock and Sarek and both the
original Romulan Commanders would have been very different people. My own feeling (and even
Vulcans these days seem to admit that feelings have value) is that the Vulcans and Romulans are as
marvelous as they are partly because they take after Dorothy. So—to the Lady WhoKnows —great
thanks and love.
Also:
Inside the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia (to the right of the statue of the Great God Franklin, and three
flights up) is the Fels Planetarium. Hidden away in the Planetarium is a door with a very odd doorbell
attached to it. And working behind that door are Don Cooke, the Dorector of the planetarium, and his
staff—a group of people very sanely devoted to that study of the Earth's backyard that we call
"astronomy."
These people share with the author the conviction that "Thataway" is not an appropriate set of course
determination coordinates for the flagship of the Terran branch of Starfleet. The Fels group's eager
(though sometimes bemused) assistance with some thorny astronomical questions ("George!B minusV ?"
"Yes, what about it?…") made it possible to plot not only the positions of major stars for several
thousand light years from Sol, but also the real positions and shapes of the Galactic Arms, in enough
detail so that the structure of the Galaxy itself made it obvious where the Romulans and Klingons lived.
To Don and all his happy people, and to their doorbell (a never-ending source of merriment), affectionate
thanks, still air, and good seeing.
…Then none was for a party;
Then all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great:
Then lands were fairly portioned;
Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old.
Now Roman is to Roman
More hateful than a foe,
And the Tribunes beard the high,
And the Fathers grind the low.
As we wax hot in faction,
In battle we wax cold:
Wherefore men fight not as they fought
In the brave days of old….
—Macaulay
Daisemi'in rhhaensuriuu
Meillunsiateve
Rh'e Mnhei'sahe yie ahr'en:
Mnahe afw'ein qiuu;
Rh'e hweithnaef
Mrht Heis'he ehl'ein qiuu.
(Of the chief Parts of the Ruling Passion, only this can be truly said: Hate has a reason for everything.
But love is unreasonable.)
—V. Raiuhes Ahaefvthe [of Romulus
II],Taer'thaiemenh , book xviii,
par. 886: J. Kerasus, translator
Chapter One
Her name, to which various people had recently been appending curses, was Ael i-Mhiessan t'Rllaillieu.
Her rank, in the common tongue, waskhre'Riov : commander-general. Her serial number was a string of
sixteen characters that by now she knew as well as she knew her fourth name, though they meant
infinitely less to her. And considering these matters in such a fashion was at least marginally appropriate
just now, for she was in a trap.
How long she would remain there, however, remained to be seen.
At the moment her patience was mostly intact, but her spirit had moved her to rattle the bars of the cage
a bit. Ael propped her elbow on her desk, rested her chin on her hand, and said to her cabin's wall
screen, "Hwaveyiir. Erein tr'Khaell."
The screen flicked on, and there was the Bridge, and poor Ante-centurion tr'Khaell just as he had been
twenty minutes ago, still hunched over and pretending to fiddle with his communications boards. At the
sight of Ael he straightened quickly and said, "Ie, khre'Riov?"
Don't play the innocent withme,child , thought Ael.You should have had that dispatch decoded and
translated ten minutes ago . . .as well you know . "Erein, eliukh hwio' 'ssuy llas-mene
arredhaud'eitroi?"
She said it politely enough, but the still, low-lidded look she gave him was evidently making it plain to
tr'Khaell that if Ael had to ask him again about what was holding up the dispatch's deciphering, it would
go hard with him. Sweat broke out on tr'Khaell's forehead. "Ie, khre'Riov, sed ri-thlaha nei' yhreill-ien
ssuriu mnerev dhaarhiin-emenorriul—"
Oh indeed! I know how fast that computer runs; I was building them with my own hands before you
knew which end to hold a sword by. Of course, you can't just come out and tell me that the Security
Officer ordered you to let her read the dispatch before I saw it, now can you? "Rhi siuren, Erein."
Poor tr'Khaell's face gave Ael the impression that t'Liun was going to take rather longer than "five
minutes" to read the dispatch. Tr'Khaell looked panic-stricken, "Khre'Riov—"he started to say. But
"Ta-'khoi," Ael said to the screen, and it flicked off.
Pitiable, Ael thought.Truly I could feel sorry for him. But if he chooses to sell his loyalty to two
commanders at once, who am I to deprive him of the joy of being caught between them? Perhaps
he'll learn better . And after a second she laughed once, softly, as much at herself as at tr'Khaell.
Perhaps the Galaxy will stop rotating .
She pushed away from the desk and leaned back in her comfortable chair, considering with calm irony
how little her surroundings looked like the cage they actually were.They truly think they've deceived
me , she thought, amused and contemptuous, looking around at the spare luxury of her command cabin.
Pad the kennel with velvets, they say to each other; feed the old thraion fat flesh and blood wine,
put her in command of a fleet, and she won't notice that the only ones who pay any attention to
her orders are the ones stuck inside the bars with her . Ael's lips curled slightly upward at the thought.
"Susse-thrai"had been the name bestowed upon her, half in anger, half in affection, by her old crew on
Bloodwing; the keen-nosed, cranky, wily old she-beast, never less dangerous than when you thought her
defenseless, and always growing new teeth far back in her throat to replace the old ones broken in biting
out the last foe's heart. You might cage a thrai, you might poke it through the bars and laugh; but it would
find a way to be avenged for the insult. It would break out and tear off your leg and eat it before your
face—or run away and wait till you had died of old age, then come back and excrete on your grave.
Then Ael frowned at herself, annoyed. "Crude," she said.to the room, eyes flicking up to the
ceiling-corner by the bed as she wondered whether t'Liun had managed to bug the place already since
last week. "I grow crude, as they do."Chew on that, you vacuum-headed creature, and wonder what
it means , thought Ael, getting up to pace her cage.
The most annoying part was that it was true. That courtesy, honor, noble behavior should be cast aside
by the young, perceived as a useless hindrance to expediency, was bad enough. But that she should
begin to sink to their level herself, descending into brute-beast metaphors and savagery instead of the
straightforward dealing that had been tradition for four thousand years of civilization—that was galling.I
will not fight them with their own methods , Ael thought.That b the surest way to become them. I
will come by my victories honestly. And as for Sunseed—
She stopped in front of another of her cabin's luxuries, one better than private 'fresher or sleeping silks or
key lighting. Beyond the wide port, space yawned black, with stars burning in it—stars that atCuirass's
present sublight speed hung quite still, apparently going nowhere.As 1 am , she thought, but the thought
was reflex, and untrue. Ael grimaced again and leaned her forehead against the cool clearsteel.
In one way, she had no one to blame for where she was right now but herself. When she had heard
about the Sunseed project based at Levaeri V, and had begun to realize what it could do to Rihannsu
civilization if fully implemented, shock and horror had stung her into swift action. She had taken leave
fromBloodwing and gone home to ch'Ríhan to lobby against the project— openly speaking out against it
in the Senate, and privately making the rounds of her old political cronies, all those old warrior-Senators
and those few comrades in the Praetorate who owed her favors. However, Ael had not realized the
extent to which the old warriors were being outweighed, or in some cases subverted or cowed, by the
young ones—the hot-blooded children who wanted everything right now, who wanted the easy, swift
victories that the completion of Sunseed would bring them. Honorless victories, against helpless foes; but
the fierce young voices now rising in the Senate cared nothing about that. They wanted safety, security, a
world without threats, a universe in which they could swoop down on defenseless ships or planets and
take what they wanted.
Thieves, Ael thought.They have no desire to be warriors, fighting worthy foes for what they want,
and winning or losing according to their merits. They want to be robbers, like our accursed allies
the Klingons. Raiders, who stab in the back and loot men's corpses, or worlds. And as for those of
us who remember an older way, a better way, they wait for us to die. Or in some cases, they hurry
us along … .
She pushed herself away from the cool metal of the port, breathed out once. Somewhere among those
stars, out in that blackness, ch'Ríhan and ch'Havran hung, circling one another majestically in the year's
slow dance around amber Eisn; two green-golden gems, cloud-streaked, seagirt, burning fair. But she
would probably never walk under those clouds again, or beside those seas, as a result of that last visit to
the sigil-hung halls of the Senate. The young powers in the High Command, suspicious of Ael from the
first, now knew for sure that she was opposed to them, and their reaction to her opposition had been
swift and thorough. They dared not exile her or murder her, not openly; she was after all a war hero
many times over, guilty of no real crime. Instead they had "honored" her, having Ael sent out on a long
tour of duty, into what was ostensibly a post of high command and great peril. Command she wielded,
but with eyes watching her, spies of various younger Senators and Praetors. And as for peril… it came
rarely, but fatally, here in the Outmarches—the deadly peaceful space that the power surrounding most
of it called the Romulan Neutral Zone.
Names, Ael thought with mild irony,names… How little they have to do with the truth, sometimes .
The great cordon of space arbitrarily thrown about Eisn was hardly neutral. At best it was a vast dark
hiding-place into which ships of both sides occasionally dodged, preparing for intelligence-gathering
forays on the unfriendly neighbor. As for "Romulan"—After first hearing the word in Federation Basic,
rather than by universal translator, Ael had become curious to understand the name the Empire's old foes
had given her world, and had done some research into it. She had been distastefully fascinated to find the
word's meaning rooted in some weird Terran story of twin brothers abandoned in the wilds and there
discovered and given suck by a brute beast rather like a thrai. It would take a Terran to think of
something so bizarre.
But whether one called Eisn's paired worlds ch'Ríhan and ch'Havran or Romulus and Remus, Ael knew
she was unlikely to ever walk either of them again.Never again to walk through Airissuin's purple
meads , she thought, gazing out at the starry darkness.Never to see that some loved one had hung up
the name-flag for me; never to climb Eilairiv and took down on the land my mothers and fathers
worked for a thousand years, the lands we held with the plowshare and the sword … For the angry
young voices in the Senate, Mrian and Hei and Llaaseil and the rest, had put her safely out of their way;
and here, while they held power, she would stay. They would wait and let time do what their lack of
courage or some poor tattered rag of honor forbade them.
Accidents happened in the Neutral Zone, after all. Ships far from maintenance suddenly came to grief.
That was likely enough, in this poor secondhand Warbird with which they'd saddled her, this flying
breakdown looking for a place to happen. Crews rebelled against discipline, mutinied, on long hauls…
and that was likely too, considering the reprehensible lot of rejects and incompetents with whom she was
trapped here. Ael thought longingly of her own crew ofBloodwing; fierce, dogged folk tried in a hundred
battles and faithful to her… but that faithfulness was why her enemies in the High Command had had her
transferred fromBloodwing in the first place. A crew that could not be bought, the taste of the old
loyalty, made them nervous. It was a question how long even Tafv, so far innocent of the Senate's
suspicion, would be able to hold on to them. And it was no use thinking about them in any case. She was
stuck with the ship's complement ofCuirass , half of them in the pay of the other half or of her enemies in
Command, nearly all of them hating nearly all the others, and all of them definitely hatingher; they knew
perfectly well why they'd been cut orders for so long a tour.
And if those problems failed to wear her down to suicide, or kill her outright, there were others that
surely would. Those problems had names likeIntrepid… Inaieu… Constellation . If Ael survived too
long, she knew she would be ordered into the path of one of them. Honor would require her to obey her
orders; and sinceCuirass was alone and far, far from support, honor would eventually be the death of
her. Her unfriends in the Senate would find the irony delightful.
Well, Ael thought.We shall see . She shifted her eyes again to the desk screen and reread the letter
coolly burning there, blue against the black.
FROM THE COMMANDER TAFV EI-LEINARRH TR'RUAILLIEU, SET IN AUTHORITY
OVER IMPERIAL VESSELBLOODWING , TO THE RIGHT NOBLE COMMANDER-GENERAL
AEL T'RLLAILLIEU, SET IN AUTHORITY OVER IMPERIAL CRUISERCUIRASS ,
RESPECTFUL GREETING. IF MATTERS ARE WELL WITH YOU, THEN THEY ARE WELL
WITH ME ALSO. HONORED MOTHER, I HEAR WITH SOME REGRET OF YOUR RECENT
ASSIGNMENT TO THE OUTMARCHES, IN THAT I SHALL FOR SOME TIME BE DENIED
THE PRIVILEGE OF PRESENTING MY DUTY TO YOU IN PERSON. BUT WE MUST ALL
BOW WILLINGLY TO THOSE DUTIES EVEN HIGHER THAN FAMILY TIES WHICH THE
IMPERIUM REQUIRES OF US; AS I KNOW YOU DO.
PATROLS IN THIS AREA REMAIN QUIET, AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED, OUR
PRESENTLY-ASSIGNED CORRIDOR BEING SO FAR FROM ANY ENEMY (OR COME TO
THINK OF IT, ANY FRIENDLY) ACTIVITY. HIGH COMMAND TELLS US LITTLE OR
NOTHING ABOUT HAPPENINGS IN THE OUTMARCH QUADRANTS WHICH YOU ARE
PATROLLING—SECURITY UNDERSTANDABLY BEING WHAT IT IS—BUT I CAN ONLY
HOPE THAT THIS FINDS YOU SAFE, OR BETTER STILL, VICTORIOUS IN SOME
SKIRMISH WHICH HAS LEFT OUR ENEMIES SMARTING.
MASTER ENGINEER TR'KEIRIANH HAS FINALLY MANAGED TO DISCOVER THE
SOURCE OF THAT PECULIARITY IN THE WARP DRIVE THAT KEPT TROUBLING US
DURINGBLOODWING' S LAST TOUR OF THE MARCHES NEAR THE HA-SUIWEN STARS.
EVIDENTLY ONE OF THE MULTISTATE EQUIVOCATOR CRYSTALS WAS AT FAULT,
THE CRYSTAL HWING DEVELOPED A FLUID-STRESS FAULT THAT MALFUNCTIONED
ONLY DURING MEGA-GAUSS MAGNETIC FIELD VARIATIONS OF THE KIND THAT
OCCUR DURING HIGH WARP SPEEDS—AND NEVER IN THE TESTING CYCLE, WHICH IS
WHY WE COULD NOT FIND THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM BEFORE. I HWE
RECOMMENDED TR'KEIRIANH FOR A MINOR COMMENDATION. MEANWHILE, OTHER
MATTERS ABOARD SHIP REMAIN SO UNREMARKABLE AND SO MUCH THE SAME AS
WHEN I LAST WROTE YOU THAT THERE IS LITTLE USE IN CONTINUING THIS. I WILL
CLOSE SAYING THAT VARIOUS OFBLOODWING 'S CREW HAVE ASKED ME TO OFFER
THEIR OLD COMMANDER THEIR RESPECTS, WHICH NOW I DO, ALONG WITH MY
OWN. THE POWERS LOOK ON YOU WITH FAIOR. THIS BY MY HAND, THE ONE
HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH SHIP'S DAY SINCEBLOODWING 'S DEPARTURE FROM
CH'RÍHAN, THE EIGHTY-NINTH DAY OF MY COMMAND. TR'RLLAILLIEU. LIFE TO THE
IMPERIUM.
Ael smiled at the letter, a smile it was well that none ofCuirass's crew could see. Such a bland and
uncommunicative missive was hardly in Tafv's style. But it indicated that he knew as well as Ael what
would happen to the letter when Ael's ship received it. It would be read by tr'Khaell in Communications,
passed on to Security Officer t'Liun, who had tr'Khaell so firmly under her thumb, and avidly read for any
possible sign of secret messages or disaffection—then put through cryptanalysis as well by t'Liun's tool
tr'Iawaain down in Data Processing. Much good it would do them; Tafv was not fool enough to put what
he had to say in any code they would be able to break.
Oh, t'Liun would findsomething in cryptanalysis, to be sure. A stiff and elegant multiple-variable code,
just complex enough to be realistic and careless enough to be breakable after a goodly period of
head-beating. She would find a message that said,PLAN FAILED,APPEALS TO PRAETORATE
UNSUCCESSFUL; FURTHER ATTEMPTS REFUSED.Which, being exactly what t'Liun (and
the High Command people who paid her) wanted to hear, would quiet them for a little while. Until it was
too late, at least.
Ael leaned back and stretched. Tafv's mention of repairs to the warp drive told her that he and Giellun
tr'Keirianh, Powers bless both their twisty minds, had finally succeeded in attaching those
stealthily-acquired Klingon gunnery augmentation circuits toBloodwing's phasers—an addition that
would give the valiant old ship three times a Warbird's usual firepower. Ael did not care for the Klingon
ships that the Empire had been buying lately; their graceless design was offensive to her, and their
workmanship was usually hasty and shoddy. But though Klingons might be abysmal shipwrights, they did
know how to build guns. And though the adaptation toBloodwing's phasers had bid fair to take forever,
it had also been absolutely necessary for the success of their plan.
As for the rest of the letter, Tafv had made it plain to Ael that he was close, and ready, and waiting on
her word. He had also told her plainly, by saying nothing, that his communications were being monitored
too; that Command had refused to allow him details on Ael's present location, which he evidently knew
only by virtue of the few family spies still buried in Command Communications; that there was some
expectation of the enemy in the quadrant to which Ael had been sent; and that her old crew was willing
and ready to enact the plan which she and Tafv had been quietly concocting since the "honor guard" had
come to escort Ael offBloodwing to her new command onCuirass .
Ael was quite satisfied. There was only one more thing she lacked, one element missing. She had spent a
good deal of money during that last trip to ch'Ríhan, attempting to encourage its presence. Now she had
merely to wait, and keep good hope, until time or Federation policy produced it. And once it did…
The screen chimed quietly. "Ta'rhae," she said, turning toward it from the port.
Tr'Khaell appeared on the screen again, his sweat still in evidence. "Khre'Riov, na-hwi reh eliu
arredhau'ven—"
Four and a half minutes, Ael thought, amused.T'Liun's reading speed is improving. Or tr'Khaell's
shouting is . "Hnafiv 'rau, Erein."
The man had no control of his face at all; the flicker of his eyes told Ael that there was something worth
hearing in this message indeed, something he had been hoping she would order him to read aloud. "
Hilain na nfaaisturII'efwrohin galae —"
"Ie, ie," Ael said, sitting down at her desk again, and waving a hand at him to go on. News of the rather
belated arrival in this quadrant of her fleet, such as it was, interested her hardly at all.Wretched used
Klingon ships that they are, they should only have been eaten by a black hole on the way in . "Hre
va?"
"Lai hra'galae na hilain, khre'Riov. Mrei kha rhaaukhir Lloannen'galae .. .te ssiun bhveinu hir'
Enterprisekhina ."
Ael carefully did not stir in her chair and kept most strict guard over her face… slowly permitting one
eyebrow to go up, no more. "Rhe've," she said, nodding casually and calmly as if this news was
something she might have expected—as if her whole mind was not one great blaze of angry, frightened
delight.So soon! So soon ! "Rhe'. Khru va, Erein?"
"Au'e, khre'Riov. Irh' hvannen nio essaea Lloann'mrahel virrir—"
She waved the hand at tr'Khaell again; the details and the names of the other ships in the new Federation
patrol group could wait for her in the computer until her "morning" shift. "Lhiu hrao na awaenndraevha,
Erein. Ta'khoi." And the screen went out.
Then, only then, did Ael allow herself to rock back in the chair, and take a good long breath, and let it
out again… and smile once more, a small tight smile that would have disquieted anyone who saw it.So
soon , she thought.But I'm glad… O my enemy, see how well the Powers have dealt with both of us.
For here at last may be an opportunity for us to settle an old, old score …
Ael sat up straight and pulled the keypad of her terminal toward her. She got rid of Tafv's letter, then
said the several passwords that separated her small cabin computer from the ship's large one for
independent work, and started calling up various private files— maps of this quadrant, and neighboring
ones. "Ie rha," she said as she set to work—speaking aloud in sheer angry relish, and (for the moment)
with utter disregard to what t'Liun might hear. "Rha'siu hlun vr'Enterprise, irrhaimehn rha'sien Kirk…"
Chapter Two
"Captain's personal log, stardate 0304.6:
"Nothing to report but still more hydrogen ion-flux measurements in the phi Trianguli corridor. Entirely
too many ion-flux measurements, according to Mr. Chekov, who has declared to the Bridge at large that
his mother didn't raise him to compile weather reports. (Must remember to ask him why not, since
meteorology has to have been invented in Russia, like everything else.)
"Mr. Spock is 'fascinated' (so what else is new?) by the gradual increase in the number and severity of
ion storms in this part of the Galaxy. He will lecture comprehensively and at a moment's notice on the
importance of our findings as they relate to the problem—the implications of a shift in the stellar wind for
the sector's interstellar 'ecology,' the potentially disastrous effects of such a shift on interplanetary shipping
and on the economies of worlds situated along the shipping lanes, etc., etc., etc. However, even Spock
has admitted to me privately that he looks forward to solving this problem and moving on to something a
little more challenging. His Captain agrees with him. His Captain is bored stiff. My mother didn't raiseme
to compile weather reports, either.
"However, it's an ill wind that blows nobody good… or however that goes. At least things have been
quiet around here.
"Now why is it that, when I say that, my hands begin to sweat?…"
"Jim?"
"Not now, Bones."
"Medical matter, Captain."
James T. Kirk looked up from the 4D chesscube at his Chief Surgeon. "What is it?"
"If you make that move," said Dr. McCoy, "you'll live to regret it."
"Doctor," said the calm voice from across the chess-cubic, "kibitzing is as annoying to the victims in
chess as it is in medicine… which is doubtless why you practice it so assiduously."
"Oh, stick it in your ear, Spock," said McCoy, peering over Jim's shoulder to get a better view of the
cubic. "No, I take that back: in your case it would only make matters worse."
"Doctor—"
"No, Spock, it's all right," Jim said. "This'll be a lesson to me, Bones. Look at this mess."
Bones looked, and Jim took the opportunity to stretch and gaze around the great Recreation deck of the
Enterprise . The place was lively as usual with crewpeople eating and drinking and talking and playing
games and socializing and generally goofing off. There was a merrily homicidal game of water polo taking
place in the main pool: amphibians against dry landers, Jim judged, as he saw Amekentra from Dietary
break surface in a glittering, green-scaled arc, tackle poor Ensign London amidships, and drag Robbie
under with her in a flash and splash of water. Closer to Jim, in the middle of the room, a quieter but
equally deadly game of contract bridge was going on: a Terran-looking male and a short round Tellarite
lady sat frowning at their cards, while the broad-shouldered Elaasian member of the foursome peered at
his hand, and his partner, a gossamer-haired Andorian, watched him with cool interest and waited for him
to bid. Nearest to Jim, some forty or fifty yards away, a Sulamid crewman leaned against the baby grand,
with a drink held coiled in one violet tentacle, and most of his other tendrils and tentacles draped
gracefully over the Steinway. Various of those tentacles wreathed gently, keeping time, and the Sulamid's
eight stalked eyes, gazed off into various distances, as the pianist—someone in Fleet nursing
whites—wove her way through the sweetly melancholy complexities of a Chopin nocturne. That was
appropriate enough, for it was "evening" for Jim, and for about a fourth of theEnterprise's crew; delta
shift was about to go on duty, alpha shift's day was drawing to a quiet close, and all was right with the
world.
Except here, Jim thought, glancing at the chesscubic again, and then, with wry resignation, back up at
Spock. The Vulcan sat in his characteristic chess-pose, leaning on his elbows, hands folded, the first two
fingers steepled—gazing back at Jim with an expression of carefully veiled compassion, and with what
Jim's practiced eye identified as the slightest trace of mischievous enjoyment.
Jim became aware of another presence at his side, to the left. He looked up and found Harb Tanzer, the
Chief of Recreation, standing there—a short, stocky, silver-haired man with eyes that usually crinkled at
摘要：

ScannedbyHighroller.ProofedbyWordsmith.MadeprettierbyuseofEBookDesignGroupStylesheet.MyEnemy,MyAllybyDianeDuaneContentsDedication.4Acknowledgements.5ChapterOne.7ChapterTwo.11ChapterThree.19ChapterFour22ChapterFive.30ChapterSix.33ChapterSeven.39ChapterEight43ChapterNine.46ChapterTen.52ChapterEleven.5...

展开>> 收起<<
STAR TREK - TOS - 18 - Rihannsu 1 - My Enemy, My Ally.pdf

共155页,预览31页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：155 页 大小：496.48KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-20

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 动力学连接体 力的合成 配电装置 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 155
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注