Star Trek: The Hand of Kahless by John M. Ford Read Free Book Online Page B

like polished green opals.
    And then Vrenn felt something very strange, like an invisible hand squeezing inside his chest. It was not painful…not quite. He spilled a little of his drink.
    “Pheromonal shock,” Kethas said. “At your age, the rush of hormones could be deadly.” Vrenn had no idea what Kethas was talking about. He knew from the female’s color what she must be: half the ships Koth of the Vengeance captured had an Orion female aboard, all green, all beautiful past imagining…but Vrenn realized now that they were all just Klingon females in makeup. And compared to this one, they were all dead things.
    “This is Rogaine,” Kethas said. Vrenn forced himself to listen. “She is my sole consort. Rogaine, this is Vrenn, whom we have taken into the line.”
    Vrenn bowed. Rogaine returned it, and sank with an impossibly smooth motion onto a cushion by the fire. “Please don’t stare,” she said, in a fluid voice, one not at all suited to klingonaase. “It makes me feel that I have committed an error.”
    Kethas sat next to Rogaine, covered her hand with his. “In this House you are infallible,” he said, and then said something in a language as ill-suited to his tongue as klingonaase was to hers. Rogaine laughed, a sound that melted in the air.
    Kethas said, “Sit down, Vrenn. This isn’t an examination.”
    Vrenn sat, very carefully. “Thought Admiral, a question.”
    “Of course; the first of many, I’m sure.”
    “Why am I here?”
    “A fair enough opening,” Kethas said. “You do not know your parents, do you? Your actual parents, not us.”
    “No…I do not remember anything but the House. We were told that was better.”
    “I cannot disagree. But listen now. Your line was Rustazh, your father Squadron Leader Kovar sutai-Rustazh.”
    “I have a line?” Vrenn burst out. “I—that is—”
    “An understandable response. But the Rustazh line is extinct. Your once-father was leading a convoy of colonization; the line had received an Imperial grant of space. But the ships were ambushed, by Romulans. Kovar fought well, but there were problems…colony ships are a handicap in combat. There were no survivors, as one expects of Romulans.”
    “How do I…then live?”
    “I don’t know. Kovar’s youngest son was named Vrenn, and he would be your age…and I see some resemblance, for whatever that’s worth. But how you came to be in the House Twenty-four…that is a mystery. Records have been lost, or altered, enough to buy at least one death, could we find the actors.”
    Kethas drank his ale, and Vrenn did likewise. Kethas spoke again, in a very serious tone. “But you asked why you were here, and I have not answered yet. Under me, Kovar served Empire well, and because of certain things he did in that time I am disposed to do a thing for him.”
    Vrenn said, “I am—” Kethas cut him off with a raised finger.
    The Thought Admiral said, “I have had eight children, which ought to be enough to preserve a line. But seven of them are dead in seven parts of space; and the eighth has changed his name to begin a line of his own, and when his last brother died it was too late to reverse this course. And I have spent many years in space, on the old thin-hulled ships, when the power came from isotopes, and I have taken too much radiation; my children now are monsters, that bubble and die.”
    Rogaine turned sharply away. Kethas touched her hand, but did not turn toward her. He said, “For Kovar’s sake I took you out of the Lineless’ House; one life was my debt to him. But for my sake I will make you heritor of the line Khemara, and to this linehold and all its property; and the price is that you will be Khemara and forget that you ever were Rustazh.”
    Vrenn felt slightly dizzy, but he had heard every word clearly, and there was no Cloud in his mind. He said, “I was never Rustazh until now…but now I am already Khemara. And so I will stay.”
    Kethas stood, put both hands on Vrenn’s