“If he’s not,” Neera said, rolling onto her side to face him, “then he should be.” She laughed at her own joke. Ganz always liked the sound of her laugh.

After a moment, he said, “I think we need to rethink Nogura’s offer.”

Neera frowned. “You’re assuming he’s willing to let you return to the station at all. Simply agreeing to his offer now won’t be enough, not after the way you turned him down the first time.” Her arm moved until it rested on Ganz’s thigh. “You need to present him with something he does not have, cannot get through other means, and cannot refuse.”

Now it was Ganz’s turn to smile. “Always the shrewd one, but there’s something else to consider. We have to be careful how we approach this. If anyone finds out, they’ll think we’re selling out to Starfleet.” Such a perception, unfounded or not, would be a death knell for his various lines of business.

“Then we’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Neera replied, running her hand across his leg. “So, what do you intend to offer Nogura?”

“There’s really only one thing he’ll view as having any worth,” Ganz said, “and we both know what it is.” Something that—if the information given to him at the time he took possession of the item was correct—would prove invaluable to continuing Starfleet interests in this region of space.

Releasing a tired sigh, he said, “Contact Tujeta Larn on Arcturus. Tell him to pull it from whatever hole he’s buried it and get it here as soon as possible.”

“Very well,” Neera replied, nodding in approval, “but it can wait a while, can it not?” Her fingers delved beneath the folds of his robe.

Ganz smiled as he lay back on the bed and allowed Neera’s hand to continue its unfettered wandering, overcome as always by the raw magnetism she exuded with every fiber of her being. “I suppose it can.”

55

Eyeing the selection of fruits and nuts arrayed on the plate, T’Nel nodded in approval. They would satisfy nutritional requirements for the morning meal, she decided.

She placed the plate on a serving tray, which contained eating utensils, a woven cloth that would serve as a napkin, and a tall glass of spring water, and carried it out of the kitchen. As she did while performing this task each morning, she offered greetings to members of Sobon’s staff she passed while making her way to T’Prynn’s room. One or two were cleaning, and another tended to the large garden at the center of the house’s main floor. It was a routine that rarely varied, which was good. T’Prynn’s recovery would benefit from such structure, particularly when T’Nel returned to her own village and the patients and other work she had left behind in order to care for her sister.

For a moment, T’Nel considered the possibility that T’Prynn might choose to return to Ha’tren with her, at least for a time, but she just as quickly dismissed that possibility. If she was well enough to travel, one of the Starfleet security contingents that had remained on watch outside the village walls likely would take her into custody. While Vulcan had not disallowed her extradition from the planet, the government had elected not to interfere with the Kren’than community tenets regarding sanctuary and who was allowed to enter the commune. Instead, they had decreed that T’Prynn could be extradited upon Sobon’s agreement that her recovery was complete or if he revoked her status as living in asylum in the village. Since that time, the security details had been steadfast in their diligence, with teams arriving and departing via shuttlecraft at six-hour intervals throughout the period T’Prynn had spent under Sobon’s care. T’Nel knew of the charges Starfleet had leveled against her sister, just as she knew they had successfully convicted her former commanding officer of similar crimes. None of that was important to T’Nel; what mattered now was T’Prynn’s continued recuperation.

As she navigated the narrow corridor leading to the house’s bedchambers, T’Nel’s eye caught the open doors leading to rooms formerly occupied by the outworlders, Pennington and M’Benga. They were gone now, of course, having returned to Shi’kahr and secured transportation for the long voyage back to their space station. She missed her conversations with the Earth men. M’Benga, in particular, was a fascinating individual, a human who had dedicated a significant portion of his life to learning how to care for Vulcan patients. The doctor obviously had benefited from his time among Vulcans, and she had noted how he had easily adapted to life here in Kren’than. Though outworlders had never been allowed to reside permanently in communes such as this, T’Nel wondered if Sobon might not have made an exception for M’Benga, had the physician thought to ask. She thought not, recalling the other aspirations of which he had spoken during some of their talks. Still, T’Nel decided, it might have proven beneficial to have the doctor present as T’Prynn’s recovery continued.

She knocked at the door to T’Prynn’s room. When no response came, T’Nel listened for movement through the door and heard none. She knocked again, louder this time, and again there was no answer.

“T’Prynn,” she called out, loudly enough to be heard through the door. “It is I, T’Nel.” When there was no response this time, T’Nel opened the door.

T’Prynn was not in the room. Instead, Sobon lay on the bed, dressed in a simple white sleeping robe, his hands clasped across his chest.

“Good morning, my child,” said the elder Vulcan. “May I presume that the meal is for me?”

Curious about this odd development, T’Nel entered the room. “Forgive me, Healer Sobon, but I do not understand. Why did you not answer when I knocked on the door?”

“You asked for T’Prynn,” Sobon replied. “I am not T’Prynn.”

Setting the tray on the edge of the bed near Sobon’s feet, T’Nel examined the room. T’Prynn’s bed clothing had been folded and placed on the nightstand next to the bed, and an inspection of the wardrobe revealed that one of the soft suits T’Nel had brought for her was missing.

“Where is T’Prynn?” she asked.

Sobon rose to a sitting position, swung his feet over the tray, and lowered them to the floor, a maneuver of surprising agility for a Vulcan of his advanced years. “I do not know,” he said as he inspected the breakfast tray and decided on one of the fruit slices. Taking a bite, he nodded in approval. “The liral’s flavor is most robust this morning.”

“Healer Sobon,” T’Nel said, sensing the first hints of concern. “Is T’Prynn still in the village?”

“Again, I do not know, my child,” Sobon said, taking another bite of the liralslice. “Though, were I to engage in speculation, I would say that she has left.”

T’Nel looked through the window toward the village’s front gate and saw a Starfleet shuttlecraft, fifty meters beyond the perimeter wall and sitting on a patch of flat ground. Outside the shuttle, three humans in Starfleet uniforms milled about. “Are the Starfleet officers aware of this?”

“I suspect not,” Sobon said, reaching for another piece of fruit. “While their sensor equipment can monitor biological readings and determine the current location of each of the village’s residents, they are not so sensitive as to be able to distinguish between individuals. I imagine T’Prynn was aware of this when she asked me to stay in her room last night as she prepared to depart and to remain here until you arrived this morning.”

For the first time, T’Nel felt genuine emotion stirring within her. Training suppressed it, of course, but it was there. “Healer Sobon, do you mean to say that you assisted T’Prynn in a bid for her to escape the village?” How was such a feat even possible, given her sister’s compromised condition? Had she progressed more rapidly than she had allowed others to believe?