“I guess.” Feeling much better, and satisfied that he had done his duty, Moke went to play with Xyon in the rolling waters as the computer image of Morgan blinked out of sight.

DANTER

I.

SI CWAN HADN’T HAD THE FAINTEST IDEA of what to expect, but whatever that lack of expectations might have been, it certainly hadn’t included what he ultimately encountered on the surface of Danter.

Kalinda had wanted to go with him to the planet’s surface, but Cwan had been quite firm in forbidding it “If something happens to me,” he had said to her, “you will be the last remaining member of Thallonian nobility. Danter is too unpredictable. We can’t take the chance of something happening to both of us.” Kalinda had understood his reasoning, but nevertheless was frustrated by it and wasn’t the least bit happy about it.

When he beamed down to a central plaza, along with Ambassador Spock, XO Mueller, and Lieutenant Arex, he wasn’t all that surprised to see that Mackenzie Calhoun, Soleta, and Zak Kebron had already materialized. Calhoun offered a ragged smile upon seeing Si Cwan.

“I hear you’ve had some adventures since departing us, Ambassador,” he said.

“And your life has been no less an adventure.” But then his attention was caught by Zak Kebron, and he looked the Brikar up and down. “Kebron, are you quite all right? You look ... odd.”

Kebron just stared at him stonily.

Cwan knew perfectly well that Zak Kebron was not his biggest fan. He wasn’t going to pretend that he was all that solicitous or caring about Kebron’s welfare. Still, the Brikar had his uses in a combat situation, and since Cwan was still leery of Danteri reception, he wanted to know that Kebron would be up to snuff if a battle arose. It was the strangest thing. It looked like pieces of Kebron’s thick hide were actually peeling off. Kebron was obviously aware of it; he brushed away a few small pieces while endeavoring to look nonchalant about it. Turning his back to Kebron, he sidled over to Calhoun and said in a low voice, “Seriously ... is Kebron in ill health?”

“Hard to tell with him,” said Calhoun.

Except by that point, Si Cwan wasn’t actually listening to what Calhoun was saying. Instead he was looking around the central plaza, and he noticed from the corner of his eye that Arex was having the same reaction.

“What’s wrong, Lieutenant?” asked Mueller, noticing the way her security chief was gazing around in bewilderment. It would have been hard to miss it. Arex’s head had stretched out on its distended neck, and he was surveying their surroundings with the attitude of someone who thought he might have wound up in the wrong place.

“It ... wasn’t like this,” Arex said. And Si Cwan knew exactly what he was referring to.

When they’d come to the planet’s surface last time, and indeed beamed down to pretty much this exact space, it had been an away team consisting of Si Cwan and Kalinda, Captain Shelby, and Arex. Then, as now, there had been various tall, majestic buildings. In fact, everything had smacked of being overdone, as if the Danteri were collectively interested in trotting out the glory that was the Danteri race to anyone who happened by their world.

But a number of those buildings, including places that he knew for a fact had housed senate offices, were gone. And they’d been replaced by structures that were decidedly simple and boxy in their design, but no less ornate. They were decorated with statues and mosaics, and they were busy.

Quite busy.

Various Danteri were going in and out of the buildings—about half a dozen in all—and they seemed to be all business as they did so. People who were entering were carrying branches, or garlands, or small livestock, and those who were leaving were empty-handed. But all of them carried with them beatific smiles upon their faces. He had never seen so many people looking so damned happy. Their general bronze skin color seemed to glow with health and life.

There was a steady, pungent burning smell in the air, and at one point Si Cwan was certain he heard a small animal cry out.

“These ... these things weren’t here ... were they?” Arex looked to Si Cwan for confirmation.

“No,” Si Cwan assured him. “They weren’t. And it wasn’t all that long ago that Kalinda and I were driven from this place. “Which means they must have built these structures incredibly quickly. But ... what—?”

It was Ambassador Spock who replied. “Temples, Ambassador Cwan,” the Vulcan said quietly, in that gravelly but unperturbable tone of his. “They have built temples. These structures are not dissimilar from the structure upon which Apollo resided when we encountered these godlike beings during my tenure on the Enterprise.”

“Are you sure?” asked Calhoun.

“Always,” Spock told him in an offhand manner, as if the notion that he could ever be anything else was so ludicrous that it hardly warranted being addressed. “I did not see the structure in person, but I was able to discern its specifics clearly enough when we were firing ship’s phasers at it.”

“So at the instruction of the Beings,” Soleta said, taking readings of the temples with her tricorder, “the Danteri have built temples to them. For worship?”

“One would conclude so,” said Spock.

Another animal cried out, and then the cry was abruptly truncated. The members of the away team looked at each other with barely disguised distaste. “So ... those animals ...” said Si Cwan.

Spock nodded in confirmation. “Sacrifices.”

“Charming,” said Mueller. She was looking at the steady stream of supplicants. “I suppose, Captain Calhoun, it would be considered poor form to shoot them.”

“Personally, I’d give you a commendation,” Calhoun told her. “Unfortunately, I think it would be frowned upon, yes.”

“My friends! My dear friends!”

Si Cwan was certain he recognized the voice instantly, and sure enough, there he came: Lodec, the senate speaker, his arms thrown wide in greeting, and his skin scintillating with the same glow of health that everyone else in the damned area seemed to possess. The hem of his long, blue and white garment swished around on the floor as Lodec approached him, looking as if he were greeting old and beloved companions.

Then he stopped in his tracks, his hands clasped almost delicately in front of him. He sighed heavily, as if exhaling the weight of the world. “Oh. Oh, yes. But you very likely don’t consider me your dear friend, do you. At least several of you. You ... Captain Mackenzie Calhoun.”

He approached Calhoun, who stood there with his face clouding like an incoming storm. “You, who still blame me for the death of your father.”

“That’s probably because you killed him,” replied Calhoun, his tone flat.

“Under orders from my superior, at a time of war. But you must believe me now, Mackenzie ... I would sooner have my right arm cut off—again—than bring harm to another living thing.”

“Really. Testing that resolve might prove educational.”

Inwardly, Si Cwan winced. He was quite aware that Captain Shelby wasn’t sanguine over Calhoun’s presence upon this world. He was positive that his antipathy for the Danteri would make his functioning there problematic. At the same time, though, he could very much understand it. It wasn’t as if there were any love lost between Si Cwan and the Danteri in general, and Lodec in particular.

As if sensing what was going through Cwan’s mind, Lodec turned and beamed that chillingly calm smile at Si Cwan, apparently deciding to ignore Calhoun’s last gibe. “And Ambassador. What can I possibly say ... what words of apology can conceivably be offered ... to make clear just how stricken I am over our ghastly treatment of you.”