He keyed the start command, and the lined and surprisingly kindly‑looking face of Doctor Ehrehin–partially obscured by the environmental suit helmet he’d been wearing at the time–appeared yet again on the padd’s small display.

“I hope you will have the opportunity to view this message in safety, Cunaehr.” The old man closed his eyes, pausing momentarily as though about to correct his small name gaffe. Then he went on, perhaps in deference to Trip’s undercover anonymity.

“I truly regret the necessity of having to render you unconscious, my young friend. However, I needed to drop this vessel out of warp–but only long enough to exit in an escape pod that I will aim toward the four Romulan military vessels that still pursue us. I’ve programmed the helm to return the engines automatically to maximum warp once my pod has departed. My hope is that Valdore’s ships will fail to catch up with you, or perhaps even give up the pursuit once their crews realize that they’ve recovered me, which was their primary objective anyway.”

As on each previous occasion when Trip had listened to Ehrehin’s unexpectedly candid words, he marveled at the old man’s courage, which actually bordered on the foolhardy. After all, Valdore’s forces might well have caught up to the fleeing scout ship without destroying it, even after Ehrehin had returned to them. Had that happened, they probably would have found the scientist’s recorded message, which surely would have damned him as a traitor. Ehrehin couldn’t have believed himself so indispensable to his Empire’s war machine that he could have avoided imprisonment–or even outright execution–as a consequence. Trip could only wonder if the scientist had embedded programming inside the message designed to erase it should the wrong parties try to view it, perhaps by using the scout vessel’s internal sensors to warn the shipboard computer of the presence of other Romulan personnel.

Trip continued staring at the padd as old man continued: “As you’ve no doubt guessed already, I must decline your invitation to live among your people. I ama Romulan, after all, and I am loyal to the traditions that have always made our civilization great, going back to the time of the Sundering. But because I am an ethical student of science, I also deplore the reflexive militarism that has lately corrupted the Empire to the point that it would allow a Praetor to attempt planetary genocide. So while I will return to my people, I cannot in good conscience complete my work on the avaihh lli vastamengine, which I now know our Praetor would put to the meanest, basest imaginable use. Your words, as much as the disaster I visualize befalling Coridan, have opened my eyes.

“Good fortune, my young friend, in all your…future endeavors.” The old man paused and smiled ironically, having just declared his patriotism while wishing Trip “happy spying” almost in the same breath. “Though we are creatures of very different worlds, I believe we both work for the same end. Perhaps our efforts will eventually help to bring about peace–or at least make a war that now appears inevitable somewhat less destructive than it would have been otherwise, had neither of us acted.

“Let that be our mutual legacy, whatever good two men can do. And I hope that whatever good we both do in the years to come will live on after us, long past the time when we are both dust.

“Farewell.”

Ehrehin’s image vanished from the padd, and Trip dropped it onto the desktop.

Stretching out on the stateroom’s narrow bed, Trip looked up at the simple duranium grillwork of the cabin’s ceiling, behind which he could hear the worn aircirculation fans of the ship’s life‑support system chugging away tirelessly.

He considered the mission, another voyage deep into Romulan space, that lay ahead. With a little luck, the files and contacts he’d copied from the memory rod he’d recovered from the slain Tinh Hoc Phuong, along with the new information he’d just received from Harris, would help him alter the trajectory of Romulan society, at least incrementally.

“‘Just one more mission,’” Trip said to the empty cabin, as he recalled his most recent meeting with Harris back on Earth.

And thought wistfully once more about home, and everyone he’d yet again left behind.

Epilogue

The early twenty‑fifth century

Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana

“WOW. IT STILL SEEMS pretty damned unbelievable, Nog.” Jake moved his wineglass to the table beside his antique chair. The low fire crackled occasionally in the background, though the sound of rain pattering against the roof and the windows mostly drowned it out.

Nog drained his own glass, then set it down on the hearth beside his chair, next to the now‑empty bottle. “So, are you saying you don’tbelieve it?”

“I didn’t exactly say that,Nog. The document claiming to be Commander Tucker’s own sworn testimony–verified by a scan of his retina‑pattern taken in the middle of the twenty‑third century, no less–makes this stuff pretty hard to dismiss.”

“That one pretty much clinched it for me, too,” Nog said. “So why is it still unbelievable to you?”

“It’s not,” Jake said with a thoughtful frown. “I’m just saying it still comes as a huge surprise to discover all this new information about somebody whose life and death were as well documented as Tucker’s.”

Nog nodded. “Too bad he didn’t find a way to head off the whole Earth‑Romulan War.”

Jake shook his head. “I think having grown up as the son of Ben Sisko gives me a little bit of perspective on this sort of thing, Nog. At the end of the day, Commander Tucker wasn’t a superhero; he was just a chief engineer with a knack for spying. Besides, as nasty as that war was, the Federation we know today rose out of its ashes. The Federation might never have come about at all without the six‑year gestation period that began with the signing of the Coalition Compact.”

“And I might be chasing latinum slips and dabo tokens somewhere in the Ferengi Alliance to keep myself in fine wine and tube grubs. Good point.”

Jake shook his head in bemusement. “I still have to wonder why the standard history places Trip’s supposed ‘death’ six years after the date when it actually,uh…didn’t happen. If you know what I mean.”

“Misdirection,” Nog said. “Maybe somebody–Section 31, most likely–figured that the big brushstrokes of Commander Tucker’s life would be easier to hide if they were left out in plain sight and attached to a date in Federation history that everybody knows. That way, anybody who tries to find out the real truth behind Tucker’s life and non‑death is liable to start digging in the wrong place entirely.”

Jake nodded. “Everybody knows a lot more about the early Federation than they do about the Coalition of Planets that came before it.”

“Exactly. That’s the grave you bury the treasure in–the one you know nobody is interested in digging up.”

“It’s all so damned strange,” Jake said, drawn inexorably back into the mystery of Commander Tucker’s life and death and life. “Charles Tucker living on under various aliases, for decades and decades after his ‘death.”’ He knew, of course, that they still had to go through a lot of material concerning Tucker’s surprisingly lengthy latter period to discover the details of what he’d been up to during the entire span of those times. “It’s like finding out that Abraham Lincoln was still alive during World War I, fighting against Kaiser Wilhelm.”

“Do you think the evidence might have been faked somehow?” Nog asked.

“Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on both our parts,” Jake said as he slowly shook his head. “Or maybe it’s just the wine. But I really think this all holds together a bit too well for it to be fake, with the possible exception of the stuff that claims to be told from the Romulan viewpoint. And I’m willing to chalk thatup to artistic license on the part of the historian, who would have needed to fill in the occasional gap here or there with some educated guesswork of his own. But so far I really can’t see a fatal flaw in any of the rest of it. It’s almost as though we’ve been reading Commander Tucker’s private diary.”