Now, he didn’t know where the Remans were taking him, and his body was still jangled from the explosion at the prison. Logically, his abductors seemed to mean him no harm. He didn’t know if he was the only one they had extracted from Vikr’l, but the Remans seemed to have come specifically for him. Even now, they were fleeing farther and farther away from the Romulan guards who had by now probably begun taking Vikr’l back from its rioting inmates.

Time seemed to pass with immeasurable sluggishness, although Tuvok knew that only minutes had elapsed since his capture. He wondered what had become of the Starfleet officers who had come to rescue him. He still clutched the communicator badge that one of them had thrown to him. He couldn’t risk using it now—there was no guarantee that he would reach anyone capable of beaming him out of the tunnels he knew often contained sensor-obscuring ores—but he found its presence comforting nonetheless. Other than his memories and dreams, the transceiver was the only reminder of who he had been prior to his seemingly interminable incarceration in the hellish Vikr’l Prison.

Suddenly, Tuvok noticed light emanating from the rough-hewn tunnel walls, and he heard a Reman voice shouting from somewhere farther ahead. Another Reman voice, even farther away, echoed toward them. Unlike the deep, gravel-filled voices the Remans used in ordinary conversation, these vocalizations were piercing, echoing shrieks that reminded Tuvok of the mating calls of Tiberian bats.

Soon, Tuvok found himself inside a wide, high-ceilinged stone chamber that appeared to have been scooped out of the surrounding rock by one of the angry deities of ancient Vulcan mythology. The rocky cavity was dimly illuminated by glowsticks mounted in the rugged walls. Perhaps a dozen Remans were there awaiting their arrival, and Tuvok realized that the cave was some kind of assembly room.

“You are the one called Rukath?” The voice was harsh and low, clearly Reman.

Tuvok turned, trying to figure out which of the shadowy figures had spoken. “Yes,” he said simply.

“And yet you are not Romulan,” a large, dusky-hued Reman said, stepping forward. Tuvok saw that his clothing was not that of an escaped prisoner. Like several of the others who stood nearby, he wore a gray-armored military uniform. Though battered, the uniform suited his ramrod-straight bearing. “You are Vulcan.”

Tuvok wondered how the man knew this, but remained silent.

The Reman approached him closely enough for Tuvok to feel the steam of his exhalations into the cavern’s chill air. “You need not confirm this fact,” he said, then gestured as another Reman stepped forward. “My brother, Duwrikek, sensed this about you while you were imprisoned together.”

Tuvok recognized the raggedly dressed Reman male, Duwrikek, as one of those whom Mekrikuk had allowed to accompany them in their bid to escape. Apparently, Tuvok wasn’t the only prisoner these people had extricated from Vikr’l after the explosion.

“Did you rescue anyone else from the room where you found me?” he asked.

“No,” Duwrikek said. “Many were injured or killed. Trying to move them would have slowed us down too much.”

Shuddering inwardly at the Reman’s pragmatic coldness, Tuvok tried to reconstruct exactly how his current circumstances must have come about. Somehow, Duwrikek and his brother had communicated while one of them was incarcerated. The pair probably shared a stronger mental link than did most Remans, and thus had been able to connect even though they were separated by a considerable distance. But how had the Reman leader known where and when to send his troops? The logic eluded him. No matter how tough and determined the Remans might be, it was difficult to believe that they could have penetrated a maximum security prison near the Romulan capital without help from someone on the ground.

“Who are you?” Tuvok asked the Reman. “And how did you know to find me?”

Squaring his shoulders, the Reman seemed to grow even taller. “I am Colonel Xiomek, commander of the Reman Kepeszuk Battalion. And you, Vulcan-turned-Romulan, are of little importance to me. However, your presence seems to matter a great deal to the one who now offers hope to my people.”

Hearing a shuffling sound coming from the other side of the cavern, Tuvok turned his attention away from Xiomek. Given what the Reman had just said, he wasn’t overly surprised to see the white-robed, craggy-faced older Vulcan entering, surrounded by his small coterie of armed Romulan confederates and bodyguards.

“Ambassador Spock,” Tuvok said with a respectful nod. “It would appear that I owe you a debt of thanks.”

Spock took several steps closer. He stopped, then raised his right eyebrow as he cast an appraising eye on Tuvok. Seeming more interested in Tuvok’s condition than in receiving his gratitude, he said, “The time you spent in Vikr’l has done you ill, Rukath. Or should I say, Commander Tuvok?”

Tuvok nodded. He could see no point in trying to maintain a Romulan cover identity that had obviously failed to stand up to telepathic scrutiny. “It has been a most trying time for me.” He still wasn’t certain precisely how long he had been detained, but information gleaned from the prison computers just prior to opening the gates had led him to believe that his confinement had lasted more than sixty standard days.

“No doubt you are wondering about the purpose of this meeting,” Spock said. He gestured to his Romulan followers, then to Xiomek. “After all, the goal of my mission of Unification is to bring the Romulan and Vulcan peoples together.”

“I assume that you see the chaos that would surely result from a Romulan-Reman civil war as antithetical to Unification,” Tuvok said.

“Indeed. It would be greatly distracting, to say the least.”

Tuvok almost winced at the seeming impertinence of the ambassador’s remark. Then he heard Xiomek and the other Remans chuckling in apparent approval of what they evidently considered Spock’s droll humor.

Tuvok immediately revised his opinion of Spock’s manner. He knows how to speak to these people in a way they understand,he thought. Diplomacy is clearly best left to those with the skill and temperament to carry it out.

“I must further assume that you have found some common ground among all three races,” Tuvok said aloud. He wasn’t certain what that commonality was, but if anyone could negotiate peace between the Romulans and the Remans, on his way to unifying Romulus and Vulcan, it was Spock.

“Two standard months ago, I told you that the tensions between the Romulan Senate and the military factions were swiftly headed toward a breaking point,” Spock said. “None of us could have guessed how swiftly the crisis would come to a head, nor what the ramifications of Shinzon’s actions would be.

“While you were incarcerated, the Romulan Star Empire was brought to the very brink of ruin. Although logic dictated that the Unification movement would stand little chance of success in the current climate of political upheaval, I have attracted more followers to my cause than ever before. And not solely from the obvious sources.”

He paused for a moment, steepling his fingers before him. “I have come to realize the value of brokering rapprochement and peace with the Remans. The Federation seeks peace only with whoever controls the Romulan Star Empire’s levers of power; but it has underestimated the will of those within the Empire who believe that the established power structure on Romulus has reached the end of its useful life.”

“Surely you realize that whoever currently controls Ki Baratan’s political and military hierarchies will never step aside voluntarily,” Tuvok said.

A look akin to sadness played across Spock’s eyes. “Yes.”

Tuvok felt a deathly chill slowly ascend the length of his spine. “It sounds as though you are working with the Remans to engineer an outright armed rebellion. Have you been away from Vulcan so long that you have forgotten the teachings of Surak?”