He considered the conundrum that T’Pol presented for several more minutes, then smiled.

“Whatever she knows or believes, I think I can trust her to do what’s best,” he said to the hungry leeches squirming in the liquid‑filled container below his fingers.

Twenty‑Six

Friday, February 21, 2155

Rator II

“THE GOOD DOCTOR IS IN HERE,” Ch’uihv said, pressing his thumb on the biometric keypad mounted on the wall beside the door. The door slid open obediently.

Beside himself with anticipation, Trip stepped toward the open door, with Phuong a step or two behind him, when the Vulcan double agent suddenly stepped into the open aperture, blocking their path.

“I must caution you, Cunaehr: Ehrehin has been rather withdrawn of late, and he has been only…intermittently rational. I fear that he has begun having second thoughts regarding his defection.”

Trip nodded, not much liking the way the other man seemed to be scrutinizing his face. Had he finally noticed that he wasn’t actually Cunaehr?

Or worse, was he finally remembering him, the way Trip had remembered Captain Sopek?

“I understand,” Trip said at length. “Perhaps seeing me again will help Doctor Ehrehin become…better grounded emotionally.”

Ch’uihv–or Sopek–nodded, though his expression remained as grave as any Vulcan’s. “That is my hope as well,” he said before stepping aside.

Trip led Phuong through the open doorway and into the darkened chamber that lay beyond. The door whisked closed behind them, and Trip squinted as his eyes slowly adjusted to the lower light levels inside the room, which carried the heavy scents of medicines and cleaning chemicals.

He came to a halt as he saw the silhouette of what appeared to be someone seated in a chair that was facing obliquely toward the small room’s far corner.

“Doctor Ehrehin?” said Phuong, who had come to a stop beside Trip.

The form in the chair stirred slightly, but made no move to rise to greet his visitors. A gruff, aged male voice emanated from the corner. “Who wants to know?”

“My name is Terha,” Phuong said.

“Never heard of you. Go away.”

Phuong continued in a gently insistent tone. “Sir, I’ve brought someone with me whom I believe you will be very pleased to see.”

The old man touched a control of some sort on the arm of his chair. With a faint mechanical whirr,the chair slowly turned to face Trip and Phuong. Trip could see the old man’s white hair and wizened features fairly clearly now, despite the obscuring semidarkness of the room.

“Do you know what I’d be very pleased to see right now?” Doctor Ehrehin said in a querulous tone. “The inside of one of my laboratories, for a start.”

Trip noticed that the old man seemed to be studying his face carefully. Looks like it’s finally showtime,he thought. Better knock him dead with the first performance, or else we’reboth liable to end up that way.

Aloud, he said, “Don’t worry, Doctor. Soon you’ll have all the lab resources you could ever want.”

Ehrehin responded with an almost cackling laugh. “You mean after I defect to one of those so‑called Coalition planets? Is thatwhat they’ve told you?”

Trip felt confused, and noted that his discomfiture was slowly escalating. This man wasn’t speaking like a defector. In fact, he sounded more like a prisoner. Of course, Ch’uihv had warned them that Ehrehin might not be entirely rational. But still…

He took a few more steps toward the aged scientist, as did Phuong. Trip saw that Ehrehin had continued squinting up at him all the while.

A look of recognition, mixed with equal parts hope and fear, crossed Ehrehin’s face as Trip came to a stop less than a meter away.

“Cunaehr?” Ehrehin said in a quavering voice. “Is that you?”

Trip swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes, sir. It’s me.”

The old man looked toward the ceiling. “Computer, turn up the lights by twenty percent.” Fixing his gaze back upon Trip as the light level increased, he said, “Come closer. Let me get a better look at you.”

Trip knelt beside the old man’s chair and let the scientist examine his face more closely. With a tremulous hand, Ehrehin gently brushed his rough, gnarled finger‑tips across Trip’s cheek. Here’s hoping the Adigeons gave us our money’s worth,he thought, his heart in his throat.

“It isyou,” the old man said at length, leaning back in his chair so as to get a better look at his visitor. “But how is that possible, Cunaehr? I saw you die.”

Trip put on the most disarming smile he could muster. “Are you sure about that, Doctor? I’d like to think of my presence here as empirical evidence to the contrary.” Sure hope I sounded enough like a scientist tofool a scientist,Trip thought.

Ehrehin squinted up at Trip for another protracted moment, then shrugged. “I suppose I can’t argue with empirical evidence.” He pushed against the arms of his chair, rising to his feet with what Trip judged to be a good deal of pain. “Now help me get out of here.”

Trip rose and allowed the frail scientist to lean on his arm. “Ch’uihv says that a transport will be coming for you in just a few eisae.”

“A few eisae,” Ehrehin repeated, almost mockingly. “I suppose that bastard Ch’uihv thinks that’ll give him all the time he needs to finish getting what he wants out of me.”

“I don’t understand,” Trip said, though he feared that he did indeed understand what was really happening here all too well.

Ehrehin stared at Trip as though he were a willfully obtuse schoolchild. “You really don’t think he intends to just hand over my knowledge of avaihh lli vastamto others without first taking it for himself, do you?”

It took the electronics mounted in Trip’s inner ear an additional moment to process the unfamiliar term Ehrehin had used: avaihh lli vastam,which translated from the Old High Rihannsu still sometimes used by academics as “warp‑seven capable stardrive” in the current vernacular.

“You have to help me get away from these people, Cunaehr,” the old man continued. “Before they finally dosucceed in breaking me. It’s really only a matter of time, and Admiral Valdore’s forces might not find me before it’s too late.”

Trip exchanged a brief glance with Phuong, whose expression revealed as much perplexity as Trip himself felt. Focusing his gaze back upon Ehrehin, Trip said, “I don’t understand, Doctor. I thought you’d gone willingly with the Ejhoi Ormiin.”

Ehrehin’s eyes were now wide and pleading. “I’m sure that’s what they told you, Cunaehr. Just like they also must have said that I might start raving, saying things that don’t make sense.”

Trip nodded. “They warned me that you might not be…quite yourself.”

“If that’s true, then you can no doubt chalk that up to my having been kidnapped from what was supposedto be a secure military safe house, then interrogated night and day ever since. They’ve even been using psionic probes on me.” Ehrehin pulled back the sparse white hair that hung across his forehead, displaying a series of overlapping, vicious‑looking circular scars that were scabbed over with dark green blood.

“The Ejhoi Ormiinwant to take the secret of the avaihh lli vastamfor themselves,” Trip said, suppressing a horrified shudder at the repeated, brutal violations that the old man had revealed. How much more punishment could the fragile scientist take before his sanity–or perhaps even his life–was in real jeopardy? It came as something of a surprise to feel such compassion for a Romulan–until he realized that the impulse probably spoke rather well of his own humanity, even if no one in the Romulan Star Empire ever came to appreciate it.

Finger‑combing his hair back over his scars, Ehrehin scowled deeply and disgustedly. “Didn’t I just saythat?”