“On what basis did she recommend you?”

“I have an eidetic memory,” she replied, as if it were nothing special.

Cretak handed her the locket. “Any questions?”

Zetha hesitated only a moment. “What else?”

For the first time, Cretak smiled. “Much more. But first…” She took the locket back. “You have to be prepared for this. How good is your memory?”

“Perfect,” Zetha said, her eyes narrowing. She disliked being toyed with, even by someone who could snuff her life out without a thought. Especially by someone who had that much power. “You were testing me.”

“Wouldn’t you, in my place?”

The very thought that she could ever be in Cretak’s place gave Zetha pause.

“I suppose I would.”

“Even so. A perfect memory, you say. You’re overly confident.”

Zetha shrugged. “Just accurate. If I hear something, I can play it back in my mind like a recording. If I read it, it scrolls across the inside of my eyelids.”

Cretak tilted her head like a bird, skepticism written in every plane of her handsome face. She tapped something into her personal comm and turned the screen so that Zetha could read it. Zetha did. Then closed her eyes and recited it verbatim.

Even Cretak, it seemed, could occasionally be surprised. “Impressive,” she said, “but that puts us only halfway there. Try this.”

She coded a sequence into the keypad on her desk and a voice recording began to play. Zetha listened intently. After a moment or two, Cretak stopped the recording.

“What language is that?” Zetha asked.

“Inconsequential. If your memory is what you claim it is, you can reproduce it.”

Again Zetha shrugged, and began to speak the foreign tongue, though she understood not a word of it, perfectly.

Cretak seemed to have been holding her breath. Now she let it out in a great slow exhalation. “Eidetic!” she breathed. “No wonder your lord treasures you. This may make matters more complex rather than simpler.”

“How so?”

“Not for you to know.” Cretak opened a wall safe and handed Zetha a datachip. “Your lord has given you to me for now. I will provide you with a room and a listener. You will memorize everything on this chip, however incomprehensible it may seem. You will recite it for me so I am certain you have it right, then you will not speak it again until you reach the person to whom you are also to entrust the locket.”

Something thrilled in Zetha’s blood. Who was this person, on what side of the dilemma of good and evil? If she refused this mission now, would she be killed? It seemed apparent, considering the amount of information she’d just been given. This,she thought, is where you must decide.

“Who is this person? Where?”

In answer, Cretak had one more bit of media to display, a grainy visual full of static and flutter, the audio fading in and out. Zetha lacked the sophistication to recognize that what she was looking at was an intercept of a long-range comm signal, but didn’t care. She had seen vids about humanoids and had a vague idea what they looked like. And she knew that there were hundreds of other species to be found in known space. She had simply never seen so many in one place before. Her mouth opened in awe, and stayed open.

The setting seemed to be a classroom. Zetha’s own experience with such venues was limited, but she recognized that the person in the center of the room was instructing those around her. Most of them appeared young, and most of them wore some manner of uniform. Holoscreens around the room showed other listeners from an even wider range of species in attendance.

“They are so confident of their own security that one of our officers was able to register for the course by posing as a Vulcan,” Cretak mused, shaking her head in disbelief. “That is how we were able to intercept this transmission. Do you understand how long-range communication works?”

Zetha shook her head, and managed finally to close her mouth.

“No reason why you should.” Cretak froze the screen. “If I explained that this transmission is several years old, but we received it only yesterday, will you understand?” She saw the younger woman’s skeptical look. “No matter.” She brought the image in close on the instructor’s face. “It is this one. She is Admiral Nyota Uhura, head of Starfleet Intelligence, yet she teaches a basic-level course in communications to cadets. Can you imagine the head of the Tal Shiar doing likewise?”

Zetha had no idea who the head of the Tal Shiar even was. She could only shake her head, transfixed by the different faces on the screen.

No one spoke the words “Federation” or “Starfleet” or even “human.” A kaleidoscope of broken bits of information knit together in a patchwork quilt in Zetha’s mind.

“How am I to find this person?”

“Memorize what I’ve given you. You will be gotten to where you need to go. The fewer questions you ask…”

After she had committed the contents of the chip to memory, Zetha knew no more about the mission than she had before. No point in asking: What happens to me after I give this information to the one called Uhura? Am I alive, am I dead? Am I in exile or must I return to Ki Baratan? Am I to do this for the rest of my life, or only this once?No answers to these questions now. Just get the job done.

“I’ve cleared it with your lord. No, don’t ask me how. Just go and get whatever personal belongings you can carry in one hand, and come back here at once.”

Zetha laughed wryly. She had a flat polished stone Tahir had given her stashed in a pocket; she caressed it whenever she was cross or tired or confused. The sash she wore around her slender waist in lieu of a belt was something Aemetha had given her that no one had managed to steal. There was nothing else.

“I’m already carrying it,” she said. “Where am I going?”

“I don’t suppose there’s any way of knowing ahead of time whether you’re going to be space-sick,” Cretak mused, almost to herself. “You’re going with me.”

Tuvok frowned slightly. Everything the girl said had the ring of truth. He had no doubt she believed everything she had just told him. But whether she had been programmed thus, or had simply chosen to omit some things, would require deeper questions.

But she was yawning, and he wondered how long it had been since she’d slept. She was so young, younger than his youngest child. He suppressed a parental urge to suggest she rest now. Illogical, and self-defeating. Nevertheless, if she was overtired, her answers would make no sense. Only one more question, for now.

“Are you a member of the Tal Shiar?”

For the first time she laughed outright. It would have been a pleasant sound, if it hadn’t been laced with sarcasm. “You mean am I a spy? There are no spies on Romulus; don’t you know that? There is no need for spies, because everyone in a spy.”

“Answer the question, please.”

That made her angry. She leapt out of her chair, almost knocking it over.

“I am nothing! Don’t you understand? I don’t exist. On the way here, Cretak and I went past two sets of sentries and three sensor arrays inside the space hub. The sensors recognized Cretak, but they never even registered me, because I don’t exist. You’re aiming in the dark.”

“Are you a member of the Tal Shiar?” he asked again, unperturbed by her outburst.

Did he notice that she hesitated for the space of half a breath? No,Zetha told herself, watching sidelong as the impassive face revealed nothing. He has not noticed.

“No,” she said carefully. “I am not.”