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With adulthood came responsibility, of course. It was all well and good to indulge in one’s fantasies as a youth, but Cardassia gave him a home and a life, and in return for that, he owed the state service. He became an archivist for the Central Command library, soon rising to the position of chief archivist. Eventually, after a long and distinguished career during which he revolutionized Central Command’s record-keeping abilities, he retired, determined to spend the rest of his life traveling the galaxy and climbing mountains.
He’d climbed peaks all over Cardassian space and on several Federation worlds. The trip to Qo’noS had been expensive, but worth it. Klingons, for all their peculiarities, had a fondness for preservation of nature, so the wildnerness of Sutor was left mostly untouched by the ravages of industry and technology. It had been the purest climb he’d had since his school days.
Even as he waited for the transport that would take him back to the First City, where he would find lodgings before heading back home to Cardassia in the morning, he missed the sensation of rock under his hands, the searing cold air slicing into his lungs, the feel of the wind through his white hair—more, he missed the soundof the wind. When the transport arrived, he pla
It was only after he’d been at the kiosk for fifteen minutes that he noticed the odd looks he was getting from the Klingons around him.
Teldin had never given much thought to Klingons. Until coming to Qo’noS, he’d never even met one. He didn’t like the way they all tended to snarl and bare their teeth and shout. But then, they probably didn’t like how quiet and unassuming Teldin himself was, so he figured it all balanced out. Besides, they let him climb their mountain, and he couldn’t bring himself to be too badly disposed toward them.
“Hey! Cardassian!”
Blinking, Teldin turned to the large Klingon who spoke. “Are you talking to me?”
The Klingon, who was a broad-shouldered young man with a thick beard and a wild mane of red hair framing a heavily ridged crest, laughed heartily. “Do you see any other Cardassians around, old man?”
“Er, no. Can I help you with something?”
Another laugh. “Why, yes! Yes, you can, Cardassian! You can tell me why you’re here!” The Klingon walked up to Teldin and stood face-to-face with him. The Klingon’s breath was beyond foul—it smelled like something that had lived a very unpleasant life died in the man’s mouth. Teldin knew that Klingons had odd taste in food—he was grateful that he’d packed his own rations before leaving Cardassian space—but this was beyond the pale. “You don’t belong on a Klingon world, old man!”
“I’ve—I’ve been climbing the Sutor p-peak.” Teldin started to grow nervous. He was just a retired archivist, after all. In good shape for a man his age, but against one of these brutes—who lived for combat, or so he had heard—he wouldn’t stand a chance. Where is that transport?
“Oho!” Yet another laugh. It sounded like the braying of a wompat. Several others around him joined in the laugh. Others simply moved away. “Then you haven’t heard the news! The High Council has decided, in its great wisdom, to expel all you toDSaHfrom the Empire.” He looked around at the crowd. “No longer will we have to allow the thieves of Ch’gran to sully our worlds!”
“Ch’gran? What are you talking about?” The Klingon was ranting. Teldin was prepared to dismiss him as a lunatic, albeit a dangerous one.
But then he saw the rest of the group waiting for the transport. Those who hadn’t moved away were nodding their assent. Some were cheering. Others joined the burly red-haired one in his wompat-bray of a laugh. Could he be speaking the truth?
Then a noise filled Teldin’s ears: the transport. It was coming down to land on a pad some distance before them. An attendant came out to take their tickets and allow them ingress to the transport—but when Teldin reached the front of the line, she would not let him through. “You may not pass.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The attendant sneered. “Your kind is not permitted to mix with Klingons, murderer.”
This was getting ridiculous. “I’m not a murderer.”
“Tell that to the souls of the dead on the Chut!”
Teldin was baffled. “I don’t even know what a chut is. Please, I just came here to climb the mountain, and—”
“Go back where you came from!” shouted one person from behind him on the queue.
“Thief!”
“Murderer!”
“First you soil our history, then you soil our world!”
“Cardassian filth!”
“Look,” Teldin said to the attendant over the din, “I just want to get back to the First City so I can go home.”
“Oh, you’ll be going home, all right.” The attendant signaled to someone. Teldin followed her gaze to see two Klingons in full military uniform approaching. “Just not in comfort.”
The two uniformed men violently grabbed his arms. It felt like they were trying to rip them out of their sockets. As they led him off, the cheers of the crowd, particularly the laughing redhead, echoed in Arn Teldin’s ears.
The tik’lethwent flying from Kravokh’s opponent’s hands, clattering to the wooden floor. Kravokh stood with his bat’leth,smiling, ready to strike the killing blow, when Ruuv, his aide, entered the large practice room.
“Oh, good, you’re practicing. You’ll need it. Ditagh is dying.”
Kravokh snorted. “Ditagh’s been dying for years. His inability to actually take the final step has grown tiresome.”
The councillor touched a control on his belt, and his opponent disappeared in a puff of photons. The holographic technology was every bit as good as the human merchant said it would be.
“What was that?” Ruuv asked.
“A holographic opponent. The Federation has perfected the technology to the point where one can create a solid object. Makes a fine sparring partner, if programmed right.” Kravokh walked over to where the tik’lethhad landed and picked it up. “We should be trading for such technology, not holding the Federation at arm’s length.”
“You may have your chance to implement that plan soon.”
Kravokh hung the long sword and the bat’lethin their respective cradles on the eastern wall of the practice room. Said wall also contained a mek’lethand half a dozen other weapons—some of Romulan, Vulcan, Kinshaya, and human design. The opposite wall was a giant window that looked out over the Qora forest. The array of sepia leaves and red bark against the blue-and-white sky provided a fine backdrop for his combat drills.
He regarded his aide. Ruuv was lanky, tall but with ski
“The doctors do not think he will last the night.”
Another snort. “These same doctors said he was due to cross into Sto-Vo-Kor‘any minute’ three months ago.”
Ruuv smiled. “In fact, it is a different doctor, and she is quite sure of her diagnosis. She was convincing enough that Ditagh has named an Arbiter of Succession.”
Kravokh started pacing across the wooden floor toward the window. When a chancellor died in a ma