CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“Think not that thy word and thine alone must be right.”

- Sophocles

While she'd spent almost a year-and-a-half at Way Station 242 breaking up brawls and encouraging loiterers to move on (but could, grudgingly, admit that it hadn't been entirely torturous), Artemisia Gallas wasn't exactly utilizing her gifts to their fullest. In her heart of hearts, she was an investigator—a detective—and possessed, along with a keenly analytical mind honed by years of education and experience, an ability that couldn't be learned: Given sufficient pieces of information, even if seemingly of an impossibly disparate nature, she could intuitively draw a conclusion...

...and it was usually a clear and accurate one.

In short, she had great instincts.

Now, as she neared The Orion Coffeehouse, Gallas passed a carefully hooded and cloaked figure; something in the way this person moved, though—an effortless, almost sensual grace—attracted her attention. She turned to follow, observed from a distance for a few moments... and then identified her as a woman she hadn't seen for the better part of ten years—a woman who hadn't even acknowledged her, though recognition must certainly have occurred as they’d crossed paths.

Abruptly, this piece of knowledge joined with two other items of seemingly unrelated data she possessed... and a picture spontaneously took form on the canvas of her mind.

This one, she later admitted, hadn't even been that difficult to see—in hindsight, that is:

First, SI contacts all present and former top clearance agents five days ago, warning us that one of our most invaluable Orion operatives, the second of only two green animal women in Starfleet, has been captured by the Syndicate… and requests we make careful inquiries as to her location.

Then, Captain Luciano Mantovanni of the USS Liberty shows up, alone, looking for one of his former officers—who's evidently having sex with our resident Orion gigolo when Mantovanni gets here, much to the man’s consternation...

...and finally, come to conclude that the woman getting it put to her is the other green in Starfleet—my old friend, Vaerth Parihn… and that she’s not at all inclined to speak with me.

Why here and now? Gallas asked herself.

It must all relate to our missing agent.

She frowned, then grimaced.

Very good, Commander, she taunted herself. No wonder you're out here on the hind end of space, when inductive reasoning like that is your best work.

She continued to trail Parihn for a time. It became apparent to her the younger woman was headed for a transporter platform.

Well, she is a former courtesan, and probably likes sex—a lot. I suppose simply getting the business might have been her business... but somehow, I don't think so. Even back then, Parihn struck me as a more serious person than to do that.

Again, the question assailed her.

Why here and now?

She considered it further.

One green, knocking boots with an Orion you've always suspected had a shady past… just after the other green is abducted.

Of course.

Ashok knew something about it...

...Parihn wanted or needed to know...

...and sex for information is a time-honored Orion way of doing business—though I’m not too far out on a limb in guessing it's the type of transaction of which her old captain doesn't at all approve.

Briefly, she thought back on her own career in SI, and what it had cost her. On a number of occasions, she'd been forced by situational necessity to have… relations… with someone in the course of an assignment, or risk suspicion and even exposure.

The first time had been one of the most nerve-wracking, guilt-inspiring experiences of her life.

The second, to her surprise, had been somewhat easier to endure.

By the last, a year-and-a-half later, she'd taken it in stride, done it as a matter of course… and been back in bed with her chosen lover only 12 hours afterward—forbidden, as always, to discuss anything about what she'd been doing…

…or with whom.

Her fiancé, Phillip, a man with whom she'd fallen in love only a few months before, had known nothing about it, and she'd been certain he hadn't at first even sensed that anything was different or amiss.

But it had been.

Only moments later, in the midst of joining with him, knowing that Phillip believed her completely faithful, Gallas had experienced something she'd never even considered might possibly occur: Artemisia had unconsciously found herself flashing back to a particularly intense—and, truth be told, extremely pleasurable—moment from her assignment… and then realized, to her sudden horror, that she had just moaned a man's name in the throes of her passion...

…and the name had not been her fiancé's.

Though they'd struggled on for a few weeks afterward, things hadn't been the same from that moment. Phillip had never been able to get past it, and they'd eventually split up after an argument that had started with acrimony, and ended with accusations—accusations she couldn't refute, both because he'd lacked the clearance…

…and because they were essentially true.

She'd still loved him, deeply, and couldn't really find it in her heart to blame Philip for his hurt and anger, especially when she'd been completely unable to discuss what had happened… why it had happened.

There were men and women—even those with lovers or spouses—who could compartmentalize their lives and separate the occasional need to engage in sexual congress while on the job from their day-to-day existence.

Others could not.

Gallas had been that rarest type of all: A person who'd at first thought she had the strength, or perhaps callousness, to do so, and then retroactively discovered that each time had caused her to lose a little more of herself—until the still uncorrupted part of her had been unable to take it anymore.

She had, the morning after her harrowing break-up with Phillip—a breakup in which the argument preceding it had seen the words “bitch” and other even more colorful terms figure prominently—gone to then-Captain Nalonge and demanded to be released from fieldwork.

Wordlessly, he'd complied. But his superior, Admiral Rayner, had been furious that she'd received such training and had suddenly grown, as the old harridan had said, “squeamish.” The resentful flag officer had agreed to put her back in the “chum tank”—her name for regular Starfleet—but had given Gallas a choice: Complete the assignment she'd already begun; or resign her commission.

Hating Rayner, Nalonge, and herself, she'd gone back to finish the job… and again found herself in the position of having to bed down with the man who'd unknowingly been the cause of her aborted romance.

She’d found it somewhat less agreeable than it had been the time before, but had followed through—with both the sex and the subsequent mission requirements. With a little prompting, Gallas had done her duty in exemplary fashion.

Rayner, though, hadn't been satisfied with that.

Her subsequent comments in the younger woman's personnel file—phrases such as “ambivalent towards her duties” and “lacking commitment and resolve”—had dogged Gallas' career since then, despite Nalonge's best efforts to neutralize the negative influence, and her assignment to Way Station 242 was just the latest result of that.

Parihn's situation wasn't precisely the same; but if she was correct, it was uncomfortably similar.

Gallas was at once pleased at having formulated a hypothesis, and disturbed at what it boded for the woman she'd once helped gain Federation citizenship.

I could confront her. It's obvious she's involved in going after this other woman. Maybe she's working with SI right now.

No. Nalonge tried to recruit her years ago, and she pretty much expressed contempt for the spy game. It was… how did she put it…? “…too much like remaining a habitual liar.”

Despite the insult to her former profession, Gallas smiled briefly.

You always had a certain directness, Parihn.

Then, the last brushstroke finished the portrait.

Christi eleison. She's going after the missing operative—by herself.

Oh, Parihn, you mustn't! They'll kill you, or worse...!

Gallas broke into a sprint, crying, “Wait! Don't...!”

As she tore around the corner, though, she realized that Parihn hadn't been looking for a transporter...

...but, rather, a private corridor to activate her own.

Her quarry… her friend… was gone.

Damn it!

Frustrated, Artemisia Gallas took two of the three helpful actions remaining to her.

She said a prayer for Vaerth Parihn.

Then, she said another.

***

If things hadn't been bad enough for Jerrell, Parihn's departure was followed only minutes later by Xorc's unexpected return.

From the Kaylar's expression, he'd either seen the Orion woman leaving, or heard something about her having been there… and his surprisingly subtle mind had put things together with disturbing ease and rapidity.

“How could you?” he growled.

Jerrell collapsed into a chair.

“Believe me… I'm not feeling too good about it now, either.”

Xorc snorted, and rumbled, “Your regrets… always belated.

“Det and Nausicaans… infirmary.”

“Huh?”

The Kaylar threw his recently acquired goods on the table, emptied his belongings next to them… and then began to repack.

“Her lover came looking…”

Jerrell's jaw dropped.

“Oh, damn it… she really has one?!”

As if he hadn't said a word, Xorc continued.

“…they wouldn’t interrupt you.”

“Well, that's what I hired them for,” Jerrell replied defensively.

The big man grunted. “They need a bonus.”

Now morbidly curious, Jerrell stood and strode to the computer, where he programmed it to play back the fight and events leading up to it.

He cringed as the scene unfolded… the Ktarian, Det, laughing… rather crudely, and more than a bit drunkenly, observing to the dark-haired stranger, “I can see why you're so upset; she's a compelling little trollop, isn't she? Well, you'll have to get behind me, human…

“…because I'm next to get behind her.”

It got ugly right after that.

Det, you callous imbecile. I'd have hit you myself.

Jerrell put his head in his hands. As the Kaylar continued to stuff his pack, though, he finally glanced up, and asked, “What are you doing? You just got back.”

“Have to help her.”

His partner, confused, said, “What? We just did. I gave her accurate information—for all the good it'll do.”

Xorc shook his head.

“No… going with her.”

“Oh, you are?” The half-breed smiled, incredulous. “I guess you're making the decisions in this partnership, now?”

The great Kaylar shrugged. It looked like a glacier shifting.

“I go with her… or I just go…

“…and don't come back.”

For a long moment, Jerrell simply gaped at him.

“You wouldn't,” he assured himself.

As he brushed past, the big bodyguard glowered down; it seemed to have palpable force. He spoke more words at once now than Jerrell had ever heard from him—more than he would've thought Xorc would string together for one thought.

“Don't try me, spymaster.

“And don't come out ‘til I’m gone. Her lover’s waiting outside in the bar, and the fact that he's not back here killing you has a little to do with respect for me… and a lot more to do with the fact that he thinks you've left or are in hiding…

“…because even I couldn't stop him.”

He hefted the pack, and retrieved a data crystal from the storage compartment—one containing an enormous amount of valuable intelligence.

Jerrell made as if to protest, then thought better of it.

Xorc returned to his usual mode of speech.

“I'll see you if I return…

“…and deal with you then.”

Chapter Seventeen Chapter Nineteen