“My analysis of the artifact’s constituent elements and the nature of its fabrication have led me to conclude that, while it was made to interface with Shedai technology, it was notmade by the Shedai but by some other power.”

“Prompting the question of who made it,” said Marcus.

Furrowing his salt-and-pepper eyebrows as he stared at the image on-screen, Nogura asked, “Could the Tholians have built something like this?”

Xiong shook his head. “I don’t think so, sir. The materials are far more sophisticated than anything we’ve ever seen them create. For that matter, they’re more advanced than anything we currently know how to produce.”

“So we have no idea who made it,” Nogura said.

“Not at the moment, sir,” Xiong said.

The admiral frowned. Using a control panel next to the screen, he switched it to a star map of the Taurus Reach. “Your first report about the artifact said the Klingons had brought it to Mirdonyae from someplace else.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do we know where this object of yours comes from?” Xiong replied somewhat abashed, “Not yet, sir, but we’re working on it.”

“All right.” Nogura faced Xiong and clasped his hands behind his back. “It looks like we’ve got a pretty good handle on the whatpart of this equation, and not so good a grasp on the who, how,or where. Which brings me to my last question. Do we know whythis device was made? Was it to trap a Shedai? To control their machines? Or are those merely incidental details?”

Xiong bowed his head, partly out of humility. “Honestly, sir, we can’t say yet why or where it was made, or who made it. But I can tell you this: we are all very, very eager to find out.”

18

May 30, 2267

The Skyllawas a dark ghost drifting in the void between the stars, silently haunting the shipping lanes of the Taurus Reach.

Silent from the outside, maybe,Pennington mused. He was barely able to hear himself think. He had learned to live with the constant racket caused by the repairs and upgrades he and T’Prynn had been making to the stolen ship since its hasty departure from Ajilon more than two months earlier.

“Please hand me a coil spanner,” T’Prynn said, reaching a hand out of the crawl space toward Pennington.

Pennington poked around in the tool kit they had found in the ship’s engineering compartment and once again was grateful for the time he had spent traveling with Quinn. Because the Rocinantehad required many impromptu repairs, Pennington had needed to get the hang of starship maintenance to prevent Quinn from getting angry enough to blast him out an airlock. He located the coil spanner and passed it up to T’Prynn, who was hard at work making improvements to some crucial system in the belly of the ship. “Here you go.”

“Thank you,” T’Prynn said. Seconds later, deep thrumming sounds and a series of ponderous thumps resounded throughout the ship, shaking the deck under Pennington’s feet.

He poked his head around the edge of the crawl space and said, “Mind if I ask what you’re tinkering with?”

“I am recalibrating the governing mechanism for the ship’s inertial dampeners,” T’Prynn replied. “When combined with some improvements I plan to make in the firmware for the structural integrity field, we should notice a substantial improvement in this vessel’s maneuverability at high-impulse speeds.”

“Brilliant,” he said, quietly impressed.

The day before she had rewired the vessel’s shields. In the preceding weeks, she had improved the sensitivity of their scanners, extended the range of their communications, and enhanced the efficiency of the life-support system, ensuring they would have potable water and breathable air indefinitely.

Their lonely vigil in deep space would be limited only by the ship’s available provisions, which upon their last inventory had been estimated at roughly an eight-month supply for two people.

T’Prynn shimmied out of the crawl space and handed the coil spanner back to Pennington. “The modifications are completed,” she said. “However, we will need to improve its power supply to make certain it remains reliable during periods of stress.”

“Right,” Pennington said. “We could route power from the unused crew quarters on the port side to the inertial damper.”

“An excellent suggestion,” T’Prynn said, moving toward the ship’s bow. “Will you assist me in setting up the shunt?”

“My pleasure,” Pennington said. He picked up the tool kit and followed her. He was keen to see the Vulcan woman’s next bit of technical wizardry. Though he’d learned a lot while hopping from planet to planet with Quinn, he felt as if he had learned more in the past two months of assisting T’Prynn on the Skylla.

She pointed to the deck of a narrow corridor that crossed the ship’s main passageway. “We will need to remove these deck plates to access the power-distribution system.”

“On it,” Pennington said. He plucked a mini crowbar from the tool kit and started prying up the plates, backing down the corridor as he went.

T’Prynn lowered herself into the meter-deep space, which was filled with parallel rows of plasma conduits buzzing with energy. She opened some access panels and began shutting off selected circuits.

As the last deck plate in the short passage lifted free, Penning-ton set it aside, tilted up against the bulkhead like the others. Then he worked his way back through the knot of pipes and cables to T’Prynn. “What’s next?”

“I need a decoupler to begin this procedure.”

He fished out the tool and handed it to her. “Voilà.”

“Thank you,” she said, and set immediately to work creating a power shunt from the mass of electro-plasmoid spaghetti that was twisted around their feet.

He was content to stand and watch her work. Because she had eschewed his previous attempts at small talk, he refrained from speaking lest he break her concentration at a crucial moment.

It therefore came as a surprise to him when, while in the middle of her work, T’Prynn said, “I require a parametric scanner, and I wish to ask you a question.”

He blinked a couple of times, then said, “Go ahead.”

“Why did you join Doctor M’Benga when he brought me home to Vulcan?”

There was nothing accusatory in her voice. She had asked the question in a simple, matter-of-fact way, as if it had been an item of mere curiosity for her.

“You’ve asked me that before,” he said.

“Yes, I have,” she said. “On Vulcan.” She looked up and fixed him with a piercing stare. “I found your first answer less than satisfactory.”

Feeling caught, he bowed his head. “Fair enough.” He took a moment to muster his courage. “The truth is, I came because of a vid I took of you.” She set down her tool as he continued. “It was right after the bombing of the Malaccain Vanguard’s hangar bay. Remember that?”

Her mien hardened. “I remember it.”

“Well, when I heard the blast I came running with my recorder, trying to get a shot of it for the news. And I was panning with this piece of debris tumbling through zero- gin the hangar … and the next thing I knew, I was looking at you.” He looked into her eyes as he added, “And you were crying.”

T’Prynn half turned away, her face neutral but her body language telegraphing shame. “I was not well,” she said.

“I know,” Pennington said. “But the point is, what I saw of you was real—your pain, your sorrow, your rage. And I knew what you were feeling, because I’d been there myself.”

T’Prynn nodded. “When your mistress died on the Bombay.”

“Right,” he said. “When I lost Oriana.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, once I’d shared that moment with you … I don’t know. I guess you became more real to me: a person instead of a villain. On some level, I guess I felt that maybe you were the only person I knew who could really understand the pain I’d felt.” He sighed. “The pain I still feel sometimes.”