“I remember,” Desai said.

A waiter appeared from the steady bustle of activity in the dining room, picked up the bottle of water from its ice bucket beside the table, and filled Fisher’s glass.

“Thanks,” Fisher said with a nod at the waiter, who bowed his head as he returned the bottle to its icy receptacle.

“I’ll be back with your menus in a moment,” the waiter said, and he slipped away before Desai could explain that Fisher wasn’t actually her intended dinner companion.

Fisher traced the rim of his water glass with the tip of his index finger until it produced a dulcet tone. Then he stopped abruptly. “T’Prynn’s news about Diego,” he said and shook his head. “I just can’t get a handle on it. No sooner do I start getting used to the idea that he’s gone …”

“I know,” Desai said. “Part of me screams, Don’t trust her,but I really want to believe she’s telling the truth.”

“We all do,” Fisher said.

“Except that if he isalive, he probably helped the Klingons break into the Vault,” Desai said. “So, which would be better: Diego dying as a patriot, or living as a traitor?”

The doctor’s vaguely amused countenance turned enigmatic. “Seems like a false choice to me,” he said. “If he is alive and with the Klingons, that doesn’t prove he’s there willingly. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

Desai considered the common sense in what Fisher had said. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I’m assuming facts not in evidence. I should know better.”

“There you go,” Fisher said. “Now ask yourself: If Diego’s alive but being held against his will by the Klingons, is that a truth you could live with?”

“Absolutely,” Desai said. Then her spark of optimism was snuffed by her doubts. “But it’s still a risk, Zeke. If I start believing that and find out T’Prynn lied to me, I’d be crushed to find out I’d been clinging to a false hope.”

Fisher cracked a restrained smile. “A long time ago, a wise man once said, ‘There is never anything false about hope.’ It was true then, and it’s true now. Don’t give up on hope—it’s the one thing no one else can take away from you.”

She lifted her water glass to toast him. “Well said.”

He picked up his glass and clinked it against hers with the deft touch of a surgeon. “Thank you.” Looking around, he added, “What happened to our waiter? I’m starving.”

“Um, Zeke … ?” She waited until he looked at her. “I … uh …”

Before she could put her thoughts into words, she heard another voice from behind her shoulder.

“Three for dinner?” Jackson asked. “I thought it was just the two of us.”

Fisher looked up at the younger man with an expression of mild surprise, then back at Desai. “Oh. I see.” He smiled at Jackson. “My mistake: I seem to be sitting in your chair.” He got up just as the waiter returned. Handing the server his water he said, “The gentleman will need a new water glass.”

“Very good.” The waiter nodded and stepped away again.

Jackson looked back and forth between Fisher and Desai then asked, “What’re we talking about?”

With a sly but knowing glance at Desai, Fisher replied, “Whether we dare to hope Diego Reyes is really alive.”

“And what’s the verdict?” Jackson asked Desai.

“Jury’s still out,” she said.

As Fisher started to leave, Jackson said, “I’ll bet you both dinner here—with drinks, appetizers, and desserts—that he’s alive, well, and still on our side.”

The wager put a light in Fisher’s eyes. “Folks tell me you never lose a bet,” he said to the lieutenant.

“That’s right,” Jackson said.

Fisher shook the man’s hand. “That’s a bet I’ll be happy to lose, son. You’re on.” Releasing Jackson’s hand, he patted the man’s shoulder. “Enjoy your dinner.”

As Fisher left the club, the waiter returned and set a clean water glass at the table’s other place setting. There was no point putting off the inevitable any longer.

Desai motioned to the empty chair. “Have a seat, Haniff. There’s something we need to talk about …”

34

August 19, 2267

Pennington’s pulse thudded in his temples as he and T’Prynn eavesdropped on transmissions between the Klingon battle cruiser Zin’zaand Joshua Kane’s vessel, the Ali Baba.

“Standing by to receive your courier,”Kane said. “Shields are down, and the scattering field has been disabled.”

A guttural male Klingon voice replied, “Energizing.”

Outside the cockpit, Pennington saw only stars and endless night. The two ships he and T’Prynn had under surveillance were too far away for him to discern with his eyes.

He shifted his weight to keep blood flowing to his fingers; to prevent himself from touching the wrong switch at the wrong moment and giving away their presence to either Kane or the Klingons, Pennington was sitting on his hands.

T’Prynn hovered over the sensor station behind Pennington. “Passive sensors are detecting a transport from the Zin’za,” she said, her voice calm and neutral. “Signal strength and duration are consistent with a life-form transport.”

“Will that data tell us what he gives the courier?”

“Negative,” T’Prynn said. “These sensors are not precise enough for us to gauge the exact variance in mass.”

A new rough-edged voice said over the comm, “Tonar toZin’za. Delivery has been made. Ready to transport.”

The first Klingon voice replied, “Acknowledged. Stand by. Energizing.”

More data flew across T’Prynn’s screen. “Another transport cycle has begun,” she said. “The Zin’zais beaming someone or something back from the Ali Baba.”

Over the comm, Joshua Kane said, “This fulfills our contract. A pleasure doing business with you, as always.Ali Baba out.”

Swiveling her chair toward Pennington, T’Prynn said, “The comm channel has been terminated.” She got up and moved forward into the pilot’s seat. “Now comes the dangerous part.”

“Hang on,” Pennington said. “We’re sitting within striking distance of a Klingon battle cruiser, hoping it doesn’t notice we’re not really a piece of space junk, and this isn’t even the dangerouspart? Then why is my colon tied in a knot?”

T’Prynn kept her eyes on the long-range passive sensors and noted the movements of the Ali Babaand the Zin’za. “Our new imperative is to follow the Klingon cruiser,” she said. “We must attempt to determine where it is taking whatever it is Joshua Kane stole from Vanguard.”

“How do we know he stole anything? For all we know, based on these intercepts, he could have been delivering beer.”

She glanced at him, then resumed studying the sensor readout. “We cannot be absolutely certain,” she said. “However, a preponderance of evidence currently in hand suggests this is the case. Logically, the most probable means of obtaining the knowledge we seek is to follow the Klingon vessel.”

Pennington rolled his eyes. “More warp-shadow mimicry?”

“For now, yes. However, it will be much more difficult to fool the Klingons’ sensors than it was to trick Ganz’s. We will need to stay at the very edge of their sensor range, which will put them just outside ours. It will be, as I have heard humans say, a touch and goprocedure.”

“Not a job for the autopilot, then,” he said.

“Correct.” One of the blips on the sensor screen vanished. “The Ali Babahas gone to warp. As soon as the Zin’zamakes the jump to warp speed, we will plot its course and lay in a long-range pursuit plan.”

Watching her work, Pennington felt his latest pang of regret over having volunteered for this quixotic mission. “Say we follow the Klingons all the way to wherever they’re going. What then? Do we have a plan? Or are we just a dog chasing a car?” She threw him a bemused look, and he added, “Are we not going to know what to do even if by some miracle we catch up to them?”