As they neared the table, Ree looked up at them, his nested double eyelids blinking in alternation, first vertically, then horizontally.
“Mind if we join you, Doctor?” Will asked.
“If you can stand the gruesome sight,” Ree said. As Will and Troi sat down, he added, “I seem to have scared a few of the more sensitive diners away.”
“Nonsense,” Troi said, then cast her gaze onto the meal Ree was eating.
On a large platter was a bloody pile of raw meat, still attached to a long, curved bone. Mottled, bile-colored gobbets of fat and gristle festooned the edges of his plate.
“What is that you’re eating?” Will asked. Troi sensed no serious discomfort coming from Will; as a survivor of many a Klingon meal, very few things could turn his stomach.
Ree gestured at his repast with a single long, sharp foreclaw. “Freshly-killed targ.The Klingons have been most hospitable in sharing their comestibles. I had to convince our chef that he should notcook it before serving it to me.”
After lustily tearing off, chewing, and swallowing another large bite, Ree cocked his head to one side, then swiveled it to take in all the other faces in the mess hall. Troi did likewise.
Though the people in the room were the products of perhaps a score of distinct worlds and cultures, they had achieved an unprecedented degree of emotional unanimity. Troi also noticed that most of them were looking in Ree’s direction.
They were staring. Some were plainly horrified. But most were making a heroic effort not to let their revulsion show. Good. We’re making some real progress here.
Ree looked back at Riker and Troi. “I believe that I shall finish this in my quarters later,” Ree said, standing. “Thank you for sitting with me.”
Turning, Ree carried the platter of meat with him as he crossed the room and exited into the corridor. The room was utterly silent until the doors hissed closed behind him.
Ree’s sadness hung in the room like a cloud of smoke. Clearly, he was becoming sensitive to those who had not succeeded in hiding their distaste.
Maybe that constituted some sort of progress as well. Bridges, after all, had to be built on both sides of any biological or cultural divide.
“Damn,” Will muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Troi wanted to know.
“Looks like we picked this table for nothing,” he said, simultaneously radiating disappointment and mischief.
“It’s all right, Will,” she said very quietly. “Integrating this crew is going to take work.”
“No, that’s not what I mean at all.”
She frowned, not at all sure where he was going. “Then what doyou mean?”
“Khegh didn’t serve targ tartareduring the meal on his flagship. I was hoping Ree was going to leave a joint or two for me.”
Chapter Eleven
THE HALL OF STATE, KI BARATAN, ROMULUS
The massive ruatinite-inlaid doors swung quickly inward, as though propelled by some implacable, irresistible force. The great doors crashed jarringly against the polished volcanic stone walls, casting a harsh echo throughout the praetor’s audience chamber.
You will learn respect one day, Rehaek,Praetor Tal’Aura thought as two black-clad figures entered the wide doorway and resolutely approached her, their hnoiyika-leather boots clacking loudly on the gleaming black floor.
Tomalak moved forward from Tal’Aura’s side to intercept the two interlopers.
“Jolan’tru,Director Rehaek,” the proconsul said in even tones. “I do wish you had called ahead. We would have prepared some appropriate…hospitality for you.”
Rehaek came to a stop less than a single dhat’drihfrom Tomalak, and perhaps only four times that distance from the praetor’s chair. The man who had entered beside Rehaek stopped obediently alongside his master, glowering at Tomalak with undisguised contempt. Rehaek’s vulpine features, however, bore an almost neutral expression that would not have looked out of place on a Vulcan.
Until he favored both Tomalak and Tal’Aura with a singularly lubricious smile.
Then the man who stood beside Rehaek spoke for his master, as though Rehaek himself did not wish to sully himself by directly addressing those he regarded as his inferiors. “Unnecessary, Proconsul,” said Torath, Rehaek’s adjutant, his hard gaze focused squarely upon Tomalak. “We did not wish to take up much of the praetor’s valuable time.”
Tal’Aura had always particularly detested Torath, perhaps even more than she disliked and distrusted Rehaek himself. The proconsul’s obviously laborious effort at restraint made it apparent that Tomalak shared the praetor’s antipathy. Oddly, Tomalak and Torath looked enough alike to be first cousins, or perhaps even half siblings. Both were tall, pale, and broad in the shoulders, with thick black hair cut in a severe fashion that emphasized both men’s prominent brow ridges. Tal’Aura knew that they were of an age as well, each man rapidly nearing the midpoint of his second century. Perhaps their mutual enmity had arisen organically, cultivated by both of them over the last several decades. Or maybe it had materialized abruptly, the way Torath’s master had so suddenly appeared within—and had almost as quickly conquered—much of the Romulan Empire’s military intelligence apparatus.
Of course,Tal’Aura thought with no small amount of bitterness, the destruction and disorder loosed by Shinzon no doubt helped you seize control of the Tal Shiar itself.
She hated the fact that Shinzon’s unprecedented disruption of the Romulan political system had elevated someone as unworthy as Rehaek to such power and prominence. She hated that nearly as much as she loathed facing the unpleasant reality that her own claim to the praetorship had arisen from those selfsame catastrophic circumstances.
As usual, thoughts of Shinzon threatened to send her into a tailspin of regret. Four years earlier when she’d served in the Senate, she had tried to have the surface of Goloroth laid waste before Shinzon and his savage Remans could escape into space with an all but omnipotent thalaron weapon in their possession. She had failed, and that failure had forced her into an unholy alliance with Shinzon during his recent brief tenure in the praetorship. While that alliance had allowed her to avoid being turned to thalaron ash along with the rest of the Senate, it had caused the weight of a crumbling Empire to settle squarely on her shoulders.
If only those shapelesshhwai’il in the Gamma Quadrant had crushed the Tal Shiar a bit more thoroughly during that ill-conceived joint venture with the Obsidian Order eight years ago. Had that occurred, there might never have been a thalaron weapon for Shinzon and his barbarian hordes to steal.
“Praetor?” Torath said sharply, shattering Tal’Aura’s almost penitent reverie.
Not deigning to rise from her chair, Tal’Aura ignored Torath, instead locking her gaze with that of Rehaek. “Since you are so concerned with my schedule, Director Rehaek, allow me to help you expedite your business here. After all, I know well how very valuable yourtime is.”
Rehaek made a perfunctory bow to Tal’Aura, coming perilously close to mocking the rituals and protocols that had surrounded the praetorship for centuries. Those rituals and protocols had, sadly, fallen increasingly into disuse during the five years that had passed since the craven assassination of Emperor Shiarkiek.
“Then I shall be brief, my Praetor,” Rehaek said. “I have come because I know you are about to conduct a…private preliminary meeting with Starfleet personnel, Romulan military leaders, and former Senator Pardek.”