Nijil nodded, smiling at Valdores cunning. Although he had designs on furthering his own standing in the power structure of Romulus, for now, Valdore was the right man to back. Of all the officers in the Romulan military, Valdore appeared to be the one who was most adaptable to changing technologies, and to the myriad possibilities of the future.

Despite Valdores failure with the initial telepresence drone‑ship remote‑control units, which had required telepathic Aenar to operate them, the concept had led to this latest technological breakthrough. Nijil had been ecstatic when hed been moved from the mostly stalled project charged with the creation of a functional large‑scale cloaking devicea unit capable, in theory, of rendering even large war vessels effectively invisible to an adversaryto his present post. Despite the best efforts of some of the finest minds on Romulus, the power needed to cloak a large ship still invariably resulted in a complete loss of fuel containmentand therefore the utter destruction of both a test ship and a hugely expensive cloaking‑device prototype. By contrast, the prospect of overcoming an enemy by using direct subspace contact to remotely seize his own consoles and control computers had proved to be a much more fruitful area of research.

Nijil now felt extremely confident that the recent telecapture breakthroughs over which he had presided for the past couple of khaidoahad proven to Valdore that he had decided to back not only the right technology for the next war, but also the right technologist to bring the Praetors dreams to fruition.

Now, after the convenient death of Ehrehinat the hands of Nijils own agents, though no one seemed to have discovered this inconvenient fact as of yetand the success of the arrenhehwiuatelecapture system, Nijil was all but certain that a place of honor in the annals of Romulan scientific and military history awaited him.

Once his ideas had been thoroughly tested and properly deployed, of course.

As had often been the case during the last few months he had spent both on and off Romulus, Trip Tucker was feeling exceedingly ill at ease. Playing his public role of the junior engineer named Cunaehr, he was attending the funeral services for Ehrehin iRamnau trAvrak. Trip had discovered only today that the old man had no surviving relatives; his five sons and one daughter had all been killed in action during various Romulan military incursions. This revelation certainly made Ehrehins having balked at completing his warp‑drive project easier to understand.

As he stood beneath the midday shadows cast by one of the great stone archways of Darthas ancient mausoleum district, Trip found he had little to do other than to concentrate on not making a public spectacle of himself. After all, none of his pre‑mission intelligence cramming, or any of his other studies to date, had brought him up to speed on Romulan funerary customs, a fact that was especially unfortunate given that his covert persona was supposed to be quitefamiliar with allRomulan customs. Whenever he hadnt been working alongside Ehrehin, Trip had spent a great deal of his time poring over Romulan texts, which he absorbed as quickly as he could translate them. He had even gone so far as to improvise a text‑scanning‑and‑conversion device, which read to him aloud in standard English through the translation units the Adigeons had mounted inside his ears.

Lucky for me there arent too many people here,Trip thought. Less than a dozen others had come to the crypt, and most of these were fellow scientists or lab assistants with whom Tucker was already familiar, having worked alongside them fairly closely for the past few months. A few uniformed centurions and other military officers were present as well, the most conspicuous of which was a tall, broad‑shouldered brute who seemed to be scrutinizing all the mourners very carefully as they came and went.

Trip recognized the man as the same brusque centurion who had been in charge of the security team that had come to Ehrehins lab after the Ejhoi Ormiinassassins had attacked. He had taken the lone surviving assassin away, promising to interrogate her. So whats he doing here, giving the stink‑eye to all ofus? Trip wondered, his hackles rising.

Trip watched as the others began to approach the raised granite bier upon which stood the half‑meter‑high ceramic tibulecvessel that contained Ehrehins mortal remains; per Romulan custom, the scientist had been cremated within an eisaea single revolution of the imperial homeworldafter his death. Each person who approached the urn performed an intricate series of hand movements while simultaneously murmuring words that Trip interpreted as some sort of ancient prayer. He couldnt see exactly what the other visitors were doing, or hear their words precisely, but the whole business strongly resembled the burial ritual he had learned a few months earlier, when he and TPol had interred the body of their infant daughter Elizabeth at the TKarath Sanctuary on Vulcan.

I should be able to fake my way through this easily enough,Trip thought, his confidence rising as his turn neared to mount the few narrow steps that led up to the highly decorated, tubular vessel. Despite his covert mission, he still had every reason to pay his heartfelt personal respects to Ehrehinthe man had saved his life and taken him under his wing even after discovering that Trip was actually a non‑Romulan spyand he needed to do whatever he could to send his fondest, most positive thoughts toward whatever afterlife Ehrehin might have anticipated. As he approached the raised bier, prepared to make a quickbut not tooquickrun‑through of the gestures and murmurs hed seen the other mourners make, he redoubled his concentration on remaining as inconspicuous as possible.

As he moved forward, Trip caught a flash of movement to his left, and his newly acquired confidence sank like a stone dropped into a canyon.

“Please, feel free, Ehrehins young laboratory assistant said, making an “after you gesture.

Centurion Terix studied the young man again carefully, just as he had done earlier in todays animaurolhao,the Ceremony of Respect. Something seemed out of place with the man, and he couldnt quite put his finger on it. The dead scientists assistant seemed nervous; perhaps the loss of his colleague was the sole reason for his apparent discomfiture, or maybe it was something else, something less than seemly.

“No, you were closest to Technologist Ehrehin, Terix said. “You may perform the rite of pizanris.

The young man seemed to swallow hard before he nodded and walked up the small steps that led to the tibulecof his slain mentor. His back angled away from Terix, he began to speak, his voice low, and his hands moving in the time‑honored manner. Finally he quit speaking and touched his index finger and pinkie to the base of the tibulec.

The gesture brought a rush of insight to Terix, as well as certainty about what he had to do next.

As the assistant turned away and descended from the bier, he pulled up the hood on his mourning cloak. Terix looked over to Sweba, the uhlanwho stood guard at the rear of the mausoleum districts ceremonial arena; Terix jerked his chin up sharply, directing the uhlans attention toward the departing young man.

After seeing Swebas curt nod of acknowledgment, Terix turned back to the tibulecand concluded the ceremony swiftly, using a fusing device and a military seal to specify that this vessel contained the physical essence of one who had given his life in service to the Romulan Star Empire and Praetor Dderidex. Although Technologist Ehrehin had a checkered pastlike so many of the greatest scientific and military leaders of Romulushis work and service had nevertheless furthered both the strategic and the tactical goals of the Empire, and the Praetor who personified her. And as hed learned yesterday, the murder of the scientist had been far larger than the simple act of burglary that appeared to have precipitated it. Terix felt certain that Doctor Ehrehin had been a martyr to a conspiracy whose existence was known, as yet, to perhaps no more than a handful of others.