“Elias,” somebody said, and Vaughn looked to his left to see Captain Harriman approaching.

“Captain,” Vaughn said, and he clasped Harriman’s outstretched hand.

“John, please,” Harriman said.

“John.”

“It’s good to see you again,” Harriman said. They had not seen each other since their return to Space Station KR-3 from Algeron almost two months ago—and since the captain’s father had died, the result of the injuries the admiral had sustained aboard Ad Astra.Vaughn considered the unexpected death of the elder Harriman a tragedy, particularly for the captain.

“It’s good to see you,” Vaughn said. They could say nothing more right now, and they didn’t have to. The captain turned and headed toward the Federation ambassador.

On the other side of the room, the door slid open and Romulan Ambassador Gell Kamemor entered. Vaughn took note of her purposeful stride, several black, hardbound folios clutched to her breast. She made her way around the conference table, to the empty chair at its center. Her aides seated on either side of her, Kamemor stood there rigidly, waiting, her demeanor not what Vaughn would have expected for such a momentous occasion as a treaty signing.

By degrees, conversation stopped. Silence settled in the room, and all eyes turned toward the Romulan ambassador. Vaughn watched as several smiles faded, clearly indicating that he had not been the only one to notice Kamemor’s bleak mien.

“May we begin?” she said flatly. Her words might have formed a question, but there seemed little choice in the answer. As though previously choreographed, people gravitated toward their places. The Romulan aides seated at the table, along with one of Endara’s staff, rose and moved to chairs ringing the room; the other aides and staff members and minor officials—including Gravenor and Vaughn himself—retreated to the perimeter as well. At the table sat Ambassador Endara and Captain Harriman, Ambassador Kage and General Kaarg, and Senator Ontken. Ambassador Kamemor continued to stand.

When everybody had stilled, Kamemor reached forward and set the top folio in the center of the table. Even from his vantage at the side of the room, the volume seemed to Vaughn to have some weight to it, measuring at least a couple of centimeters thick. “This,” Kamemor said without inflection, “is the trilateral treaty document negotiated for many months, and finalized in the past two.” Vaughn saw stealthy smiles blossom around the room. An accord to which the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Empire were all signatories would be historic.

If,Vaughn thought. If.He perceived some quality, some… restraint?…in the Romulan ambassador that made him think that this conference would not proceed as originally intended by all involved—including Gell Kamemor. The ambassador confirmed Vaughn’s suspicions with her next sentence.

“The Romulan Star Empire will not sign it,” she said.

Where there had first been conversations, and then smiles, there now came the mutter of confusion. Even Ontken, a member of the Romulan Senate, peered up at Kamemor bewilderedly. “Ambassador, I don’t understand,” he said. “The Senate voted to authorize the praetor to—”

“The praetor contacted me early this morning,” she said. Vaughn found it surprising that a woman so skilled in the means of diplomacy would interrupt a Senator, especially in front of others. It reinforced his observations that things were not right. “The praetor expressed to me his absolute condemnation of the attack on the United Federation of Planets perpetrated by Aventeer Vokar. An order for the arrest and trial of the admiral, should he still be alive, has been issued throughout the Empire, and the praetor is considering trying him in absentia.”

“And for that reason,” Ambassador Endara asked, confused, “you won’t sign the treaty?”

“Yes,” Kamemor said. “The praetor feels that, because of the odious acts driven by one man and committed by him and his associates, the Empire has been asked to concede too much, and has also been willing to concede too much.”

Slowly, as though trying to contain his emotions, Ambassador Endara rose from his chair, his hands on the edge of the table. “After the tremendous efforts that we’ve all put in—that you’veput in, Gell—the praetor is going to undermine the peace process because the Federation and the Klingon Empire think that what Vokar did was wrong?” His words climbed in volume as he spoke, his agitation plain. Seated beside him, Vaughn saw, Captain Harriman maintained a stoic expression.

“No,” Kamemor said, “the praetor is not going to undermine peace.” She set down on the table the other folios she carried, all three of them the same size, and with not nearly as many pages as the first volume she’d set down. She lifted the top folio from the pile and handed it across the table to Ambassador Kage, then picked up the second and walked it down to the end of the table and gave it to Endara. As she returned to stand in front of her chair, she said, “This is a revised version of the treaty, greatly simplified.”

Endara opened the folio and began paging through it, his gaze moving swiftly over its few pages. The Klingon ambassador placed his copy on the table in front of him without opening it. “Pardon me,” Kage said, “but it is not reasonable to expect us to begin negotiating a new agreement after we have already finalized a previous one.”

“By order of the praetor,” Kamemor said, “Romulus will no longer negotiate. What is contained in these documents are the only terms to which we will agree. They can be amended in no way. They must be signed and ratified within ten days.”

“Or?” Endara asked, looking up from his copy of the treaty.

“Or there will be no accord,” Kamemor said. Vaughn did not think that she necessarily agreed with what she had been ordered to do and say.

“Allowing ten days for full consideration by the Federation Council is unrealistic,” Endara said, now seeming resigned that there would be no treaty signed today.

“Even the Klingon High Council requires some time to battle their way to concurrence,” Kage added.

“The terms of the treaty are simple enough to warrant agreement within the prescribed time frame,” Kamemor said, apparently not willing—or not permitted—to cooperate in any way. “The Neutral Zone currently established between the Romulan Star Empire and the Klingon Empire will be reaffirmed, and any violation whatsoever of the Zone will be deemed an act of war. The identical reaffirmation of our borders will occur with the Federation. Finally, the Federation will agree to ban the research and development of cloaking technology in exchange for the Empire leaving the world of the Koltaari.”

And there it is,Vaughn thought: the final result of Captain Harriman’s plan. The failed trial of Universe’s so-called hyperwarp drive had been intended to draw the Romulans’ disapprobation, and a concomitant accusation that the Federation was seeking a first-strike capability through the development of a vastly improved engine system. That, in turn, would force the Klingon chancellor to move toward choosing an allegiance.

Although the Romulans had believed the destruction of Universeto be due to the testing of a metaweapon and not a drive system, the outcome had been the same. Starfleet had handed over the hyperwarp specifications to both the Romulans and the Klingons in order to demonstrate that the Federation did not possess a first-strike capability, if for no other reason than that hyperwarp did not work. The “development” of the “new” drive had merely been the introduction of cloaking technology into the field configuration of a transwarp engine.

And transwarp was simply a failed technology of the past.

Hyperwarp would neverwork. But the Romulans would note the Federation use of cloaking technology, and they would want to stop it in order to maintain that particular military advantage. It would not matter that Starfleet had always declared its aversion to the use of cloaking devices, because the Romulans had never believed that. And so when it came time to negotiate a treaty, the Federation would be able to give up what it never had and never wanted, placating the Romulans and getting something from them in return—in this case, the freedom of the Koltaari.