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  They reached the dessert tables in time to watch the catering staff set up the chocolate fountain, an extravagance that made Ikerson wince. “Oh, this is too much.”

  “What’s wrong?” Lenore was confused. “I thought you liked chocolate.”

  “I love it. But this? It’s obscene.”

  “Oh, come on. A bit over the top, sure, but—”

  “Please. I’ve never seen anything like this except in vids from last century. If this is making a comeback, what’s next? Coins and paper currency? Health care for profit? We might as well just admit we’ve learned nothing as a species.”

  Lenore was not buying his rant. “It’s a few liters of faux chocolate. I don’t think it poses an existential threat to human society.”

  “You say that now, but if they bring out gold flakes for the sundaes, I’m leaving.”

  She forced her empty flute into his hands. “Get me more Champagne.”

  “Since you asked so nicely.” He downed the rest of his bubbly with one tilt of the glass, then made his way through the milling crowd to the bar.

  Three bartenders were busy making cocktails to order for guests who had gathered three-deep at the bar, but one end of the countertop was covered with slender flutes of Champagne arranged in orderly ranks and files. Ikerson deposited his two empty glasses on the bar and snagged two fresh drinks.

  He pivoted to return to Lenore, only to find himself face-to-face with a distinguished-looking woman in a Starfleet admiral’s uniform. Her raven hair was pulled into a stylish beehive, leaving her dramatic cheekbones exposed. She was taller than he was, with a complexion of rich sepia tones and fathomless dark brown eyes. Her smile gleamed, even in the banquet room’s subdued light. “Professor Ikerson. A pleasure to meet you at last.”

  Ikerson plumbed his memory for her name but came up empty. “I’m sorry, you seem to have me at a disadvantage, Admiral . . . ?”

  “Rao. Parvati Rao. I would shake your hand, but—” She glanced at the drinks he held.

  “I see.” Over Rao’s shoulder he saw Lenore continue her reconnoiter of the party’s dessert offerings, oblivious of his absence. He shifted his focus back to Rao. “So, forgive me, Admiral. Have we met?”

  “No. But I’ve been most impressed with your work.”

  He felt exposed. His pulse quickened. “You know my work?”

  “Quite well. I was in charge of its final implementation. And if I might say, so far it has exceeded your promises and our expectations. Plans are already in the works to expand its reach to include Luna and the Martian colonies.”

  Her revelation surprised him. The original schedule for Uraei’s deployment didn’t call for off-world distribution until 2143 at the earliest. He didn’t want to betray his concerns or come off as critical, so he chose his response with care. “That sounds ambitious.”

  “It is. But I’m hoping to take the project even further.”

  “Further? You mean . . .” He lowered his voice, though it was doubtful anyone could hear them through the music and chatter. “Extrasolar?”

  “My concerns aren’t so much geographic as cultural.” She leaned toward him and dropped her own voice to a more discreet volume. “Starfleet is making some major progress on a universal translator. A decade from now, we might be able to communicate with new alien species in real time. I’d like to see how that technology and yours might work together.”

  He parsed her subtext at once: she wanted to disseminate Uraei into alien cultures. Starfleet wasn’t content to use the program to bring peace to Earth. Its agenda was interstellar.

  It was a chilling prospect, but he could ill afford to alienate his work’s most powerful benefactor. He mustered a polite smile. “That’s an intriguing notion, to be sure.”

  “I’m glad you think so, Professor. Why don’t you and Ms. McGill drop by my office at Starfleet Headquarters tomorrow afternoon? Say, fourteen hundred hours, Pacific time?”

  “We’d be delighted, Admiral.”

  “Splendid. I’ll let you get back to the festivities, then.”

  “Thank you.”

  Admiral Rao melted back into the sea of uniforms and formalwear, and Ikerson drifted in a daze back to Lenore. She looked up from the array of sweets and took one of the glasses he had carried over. “There you are. What kept you?”

  “Made a new friend.”

  A teasing smirk. “A new friend? Of the female persuasion?”

  “As it happens, yes.”

  Lenore was too excited for her own good. “Think you’ll see her again?”

  “We both will. Tomorrow afternoon.” He let Lenore marinate in confusion for a moment before he added, “You and I have been cordially invited to a chat with Admiral Parvati Rao.” He cast a sour look at the lavish spread of sweets and its absurd centerpiece. “Enjoy your chocolate fountain while you can. I suspect they don’t have one in the Starfleet commissary.”

  Eight

  Bashir was making breakfast. Or so he liked to tell himself. As a point of fact, he was doing little more than relaying verbal requests for foodstuffs to his and Sarina’s kitchen replicator, a handy little gadget he appreciated more for its ability to reabsorb dirty dishes as raw matter than for its ability to generate fresh ones piled with meals he wasn’t qualified to prepare.

  “One platter of french toast dusted with powdered sugar, with a side of fresh raspberries in a sweet balsamic reduction, and a three-hundred-milliliter hot cafe con leche, Madrid style.” Mere seconds after he finished stating his request, Sarina’s breakfast materialized inside the nook, in a musical swirl of light and color. He removed the plate and mug and drew a breath to order his own morning repast. Before he spoke, his door signal buzzed.

  He stared in the direction of the door, dumbfounded.

  Who could that be? I’m not expecting visitors.

  Perplexed, he walked toward the front door. Along the way he waved off the half-dressed Sarina. “I’ll get it.” She ducked back inside their bedroom as he called out, “Who is it?”

  A voice he had not heard in several months replied via the foyer’s intercom. “Doctor? It’s Ozla Graniv. From Seeker magazine. Can we talk?”

  Instinct and experience told him not to open the door. Speaking with the press, especially without preparation, rarely led to anything good. Not even when the fourth estate’s representative was as well known, impeccably credentialed, and highly regarded as Ozla Graniv. If not for the insatiability of his curiosity, Bashir might have heeded his wiser angels. But the truth was, he felt compelled to know what had brought her to his door.

  “Talk? What about?”

  “I think it’d be better if we conversed in private, Doctor.”

  As much as he had tried to inure himself to flattery, part of him still responded well to people who showed him the courtesy of addressing him by his professional title. Less than two years earlier, after he had sacrificed his Starfleet career to help the Andorian people find a cure for their ­generations-long fertility crisis, he had briefly been stripped of his medical license along with his rank and freedom. On Andor, his license and freedom had been restored, but throughout local space there were still many people who resented his defiance of Federation authority, even for such an obviously altruistic cause as preserving the Andorian species.

  He opened the door and smiled. “Ms. Graniv. A pleasure to see you again.” He pivoted and bade her enter with a sweep of his arm. “Do come in.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she entered.

  Standing in the foyer while Bashir closed the front door, Graniv studied the room with fearful eyes. She got as far as the carpeted steps to the sunken living room when Sarina emerged from the bedroom, dressed in a hastily gathered ensemble of pajamas and a long bathrobe.

  “Ms. Graniv!” Sarina met Graniv with her hand outstretched. “We haven’t seen you since our abbrevia
ted interview at Laenishul.”

  Graniv shook Sarina’s hand. “I recall. You’re the one who cut it short.”

  Bashir hoped to defuse a potentially incendiary moment. “Actually, I believe that was my doing. I apologize for not following up to reschedule. If that’s what this—”

  “It’s not,” Graniv interrupted. Another anxious look around. “This might seem like an odd question, but is your home secure from eavesdropping technologies?”

  Sarina could barely suppress a knowing smirk. “Very.”

  With an upward spiral of her index finger Graniv signaled Sarina to fire it up, then she pressed that same finger to her lips to cue Bashir to remain silent until the precautions were active. Half a minute passed before Sarina returned with a nod. “We’re secure.”

  “Thank you,” Graniv said. “I brought this for you.” She reached inside a front pocket of her jacket and pulled out a small object. It took Bashir a moment to realize it was a data chip wrapped in a piece of paper. She offered it to Bashir. “I’m working on a new nonfiction book about the Zife administration. Its failures, its victories, its secrets. That sort of thing.”

  He pretended to understand. “I see.”

  As his fingers closed on the chip, Graniv didn’t let go. She tapped her little finger against the paper wrapped around the chip. “It would mean a great deal to me if the two of you would read this and get back in touch to let me know what you think.”

  She let go of the chip and the note. Bashir took it and unwrapped the tight coil of paper, which he passed to Sarina. “I’m sure I speak for both of us when I say we’re flattered you chose us to vet an early draft of your book. Though I should confess—neither of us are what one would consider ‘experts’ on President Zife or his time in office.”

  “That’s exactly the kind of point of view I’m looking for,” Graniv said, maintaining the charade in spite of Sarina’s reassurance that they were safe from eavesdropping. It was clear the journalist was taking no chances, having resorted to handwritten notes passed under false pretenses to avoid their contents being intercepted. She continued, “The Zife years were such a dark time for the Federation. Coming on the heels of the failed Starfleet coup against President Jaresh-Inyo, then taking us through the Dominion War, and finally the Tezwa crisis. It’s a lot of ground to cover, and I’m hoping you and Ms. Douglas can give me fresh perspectives.”

  A nudge from Sarina turned Bashir’s head. She showed him the note she had unfolded in her cupped palm. Its contents were sparse:

  If either of you still has connections at the Federation Security Agency, I need to speak with you in private as soon as possible. Please speak of this to no one. If you’re able to help, say you’ll agree to read my work in progress.

  Beneath the brief missive was a set of coordinates for a site on the surface of Andor and a specific date and time—the wee hours of that coming night.

  Sarina nodded at Bashir, who told Graniv, “We’d be delighted to read it, Ms. Graniv. If your past work is prologue, I expect it’ll be nothing less than gripping.”

  “You’re too kind. Both of you.” She shook their hands in succession. “I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts.”

  Bashir led her back to the front door. “Let me show you out.”

  Their valedictions were brief and perfunctory. Only once the door was once again shut and the house secure did Sarina fix Bashir with a look. “What do you think that’s about?”

  “No idea.” He spied the note in Sarina’s hand. “But I suspect we’ll know soon enough.”

  • • •

  Civilian locks were a joke—no, worse than a joke. After more than two decades of work as a field operative, for both Starfleet Intelligence and the organization it called Section 31, Olim Parra had yet to encounter a secured civilian facility into which he couldn’t saunter at will. He knew it was unfair to blame the civilians. They simply believed what they had been told all their lives—that they were secure in their homes and places of work, safe from intrusion, defended from theft and warrantless inspection. If only they knew.

  The labs and offices of the computer sciences department at the Dresden University of Technology were no different. To the untrained eye they appeared state of the art. Impregnable. Parra knew better. Their security network was riddled with backdoor codes and undocumented top-secret governmental overrides, and afflicted with at least two critical errors he could exploit with off-the-shelf equipment available from most residential replicators.

  His first search involved a detailed scan of the private office of department chair Ziya Weng. It was a stately space full of leather-bound books and such accouterments as an abacus and a slide rule, both artifacts of Terran mathematics. A data chip inserted into the reader slot on her desk powered up her private workstation and its holographic inter­face. The software on the chip would do most of the work. It would finesse its way through her logon ­credentials—not since the previous century had there been any regular need for antiquated “brute-force” attacks—while he busied himself reviewing by hand and eye the contents of her desk and file cabinets.

  Not many people keep hard copies anymore, he mused, riffling through sheaves of paper in one of the drawers. Always a pleasure to see someone keeping the old ways alive.

  As old-fashioned as the office looked, Parra knew not to trust in appearances. How many foes through the years had misjudged him, seeing just a skinny Argelian of middling years, and not suspecting until too late that he was a master of no fewer than three alien martial arts and a marksman to boot? His was a life of deception—both living it and rooting it out.

  A series of blinks, executed with precise timing, activated multispectral scanners implanted behind his retina and linked to his optic nerve. The entire room changed. All at once it was awash in eddies and flows of energy—low-level radiation, signal traffic, waste heat. Parra had learned to follow energy trails to hidden computers, concealed weapons, and buried redoubts—none of which seemed anywhere to be found in the office of Ziya Weng.

  The data chip pinged softly. Parra retrieved it and plugged it into a reader slot on the belt of his black leather uniform. Instantly he had access to the search program’s findings, by means of a heads-up display routed through his retinal implant.

  Nothing of value had been found on Weng’s computers or any of the linked systems in the rest of the computer sciences department. No mention of Graniv’s visit. No follow-up messages, coming or going. No activity undertaken following the journalist’s unexpected visit, and nothing to suggest its purpose. For a moment Parra dared to wonder: Why was I sent here?

  He shook off his curiosity. Questioning the rationales behind the organization’s directives was never a smart idea. Effective agents, veteran agents, were the ones who carried out their missions to the letter and let their superiors make inquiries.

  No joy in the office. That leaves just one stop to go.

  Parra knew that hacking the security system to reach the subbasement would still leave a log of the lift’s movements, and that would be just one more bit of evidence he would have to delete before he could leave. Instead, he reached the building’s underground labs the easy way. He opened a pair of lift doors with a small pry bar that also served to keep them open. Then he climbed down the lift shaft’s emergency access ladder until he arrived at the bottom, where he wedged open another pair of doors and continued down the hall to the data forensics lab.

  Its locks were biometric in nature, some of the toughest the Federation had to offer. He bypassed them in under nine seconds.

  Once inside, he set his sights on the only part of the university’s computer sciences department his invasive software hadn’t yet cracked: its Faraday room. The signal-blocking enclosure was dark and quiet except for the low hum of its door’s magnetic locks. Upon closer inspection, Parra realized the Faraday room hadn’t been secured with routine components
. The department’s staff, and possibly a few of its undergraduates, had engineered their own robust security system to safeguard their lab’s most vital assets.

  Twenty-one seconds later, Parra was inside the Faraday room and no alarms had been triggered. It’s a shame the organization doesn’t give awards for this sort of thing.

  All of the machines inside the Faraday room were disconnected from one another and from the room’s sole link to the outside—a practice still known by the antiquated term air gapping. If he wanted to inspect the contents of their drives, he would have to reconnect them all and then run his chip from the master console, which was the only system inside the room that was modern enough to interface with the chip or run its program. All of the other machines in the room, he soon discovered, were duotronic systems at least a century old, and some were far older than that. He was certain he saw at least one that predated the era of optronics.

  This is what they think needs to be hidden from the network? A bunch of old workhorse units that can’t even plot a warp-speed trajectory?

  It made no sense to him. He stood in front of the master console and sifted through a stack of handwritten notes. They were all nearly illegible. The few that contained alphanumeric characters he recognized seemed to have been composed in a kind of jargon-rich shorthand he couldn’t parse. Letters, numbers, and esoteric symbols blended together into a patois so bizarre it might as well have been alien script.

  He used his retinal implant to snap magnified detail shots of several of the pages, then he used a playback vid from the implant to make certain he reset the room’s contents to precisely where he had found them. The Faraday room’s door locked behind him on his way out.

  Two minutes later he was back on the streets of Dresden, completely at a loss for what his superiors had intended him to find. That’s not my problem, he reminded himself. He uploaded the recordings of his retinal implant in a single data burst, then purged its memory. His work for the night was over—and that was all Olim Parra needed or wanted to know.