"And what is that?" Yorgas asked with a broad smile. This is going well. This foolish old woman will give me everything I ask for. She even apologized!

"That you have stonewalled these negotiations. That, in fact, you have not been acting in good faith but instead doing everything you can to drag out this process."

Yorgas's face went cold again. "Yar Bacco, I can a.s.sure you that I have done no such- "

"Spare me, Mr. Amba.s.sador. Your offers haven't been generous, they've been outrageous-and what's more, you know they're outrageous. Unless, of course, you're far more incompetent than we've been led to believe. Either way, the Carreon have insulted the United Federation of Planets, and we are not going to stand for it." She stood up. "Quite simply, Mr. Amba.s.sador, we've had enough. You've been hara.s.sing the Deltans for a long time, and now you're holding them up over a water reclamation system that will cost you nothing to provide, yet they cannot live without." She pointed an accusatory finger at him. "You, sir, are condemning an entire species to dehydration just so you can derive pleasure from watching Amba.s.sador Tierra and her staff squirm. I gotta say, Mr. Amba.s.sador, how you can do that and still claim any kind of moral high ground is a mystery that I will take to my grave."

"Yar Bacco- " Yorgas started, but this time it was he the president interrupted.

"Mr. Amba.s.sador, if you do not come to an agreement with Amba.s.sador Tierra within the next thirty minutes, the Federation is going to declare war on the Carreon."

Yorgas felt his breakfast start to rise in his throat. He swallowed it down, but the bitter taste remained in the back of his mouth. He stood up and clenched his fist. "This is outrageous! On what grounds would you declare war?"

Bacco actually smiled-smiled! Yorgas had never been so insulted in his life. Then she said, "Well, for starters, the person in my position is properly addressed as 'ma'am' or 'Madam President.' "

That, Yorgas could not believe. "You would go to war, engage your Starfleet in a military engagement that would result in countless casualties-over an insult?"

"I did say 'for starters,' Mr. Amba.s.sador. We'd then go to the depraved indifference of allowing this situation to continue, and negotiating in bad faith. It's that last one that especially got my dander up-you see, Mr. Amba.s.sador, negotiation is all we have to prevent war. But if you're not even going to give us that, then we only have one option left."

Yorgas put his hand to the back of his head. This was disastrous. The Federation was the largest power in the quadrant. They'd successfully beaten back the Dominion after they'd gained a foothold in Carda.s.sia. They were allied with the Klingons, who were experts at warmaking.

Then he calmed down. She had to be bluffing. "Then declare your war, Yar Ba- " He hesitated. "Madam President. Send your fleets."

"Oh, I don't have to send any fleets. Right now there's a ship in orbit of Carrea, the U.S.S. Cheiron. It's a Centaur-cla.s.s ship, it's got eighteen phaser emplacements and four torpedo launchers. Not sure what its complement of photon and quantum torpedoes is, but you can rest a.s.sured that it's enough to pulverize your planet."

"You wouldn't," Yorgas whispered. The Cheiron had been investigating solar flares in Carrea's home star system, at the request of the Carreon Science Inst.i.tute, since Starfleet had better sensors than the Carreon science ships. I can't believe that they'd- "Now you could risk an interstellar incident, Mr. Amba.s.sador. Or you can let the Deltans have the water reclamation system."

Trying to maintain some shred of his mission, Yorgas said, "We must have something, Madam President."

"You're right." Bacco turned to Tierra. "Why don't you give them Brannik IV?"

Tierra nodded. "Very well."

Yorgas's mouth fell open. He closed it quickly, then said, "You'll-you'll give us Brannik?"

"No," Tierra said in a soft voice that sounded like honey, "but we will allow you to set up your scientific base. Our satellites will remain in orbit, and they will be watching you to make sure that all you do is watch the animal life."

Yorgas looked back and forth between Tierra and Bacco. "You two planned this."

"That's right," Bacco said. "We got together and decided ahead of time to make you look stupid. Kinda like what you've been doing to her for the past few months."

The Carreon amba.s.sador found that he had nothing he could say in response to that.

Bacco clapped her hands together. "Well, then-I'm glad we had this chat. I'd hate for us to go to war, especially since we'd likely torpedo you back to the Oida age. I'll leave you all to work out the details."

Tierra and her staff all said, "Thank you, Madam President."

Yorgas said nothing, but he did remain standing, even after Tierra sat back down. I have been humiliated. And now I must return to Carrea and tell them that I gave in.

He sighed. I can only hope that finally getting the base on Brannik IV will mitigate my punishment.

Amba.s.sador K'mtok did not like to be kept waiting.

He sat in the waiting area outside President Bacco's office. According to the supercilious Vulcan, the Federation leader was in some kind of meeting. The Vulcan also pointed out that if the amba.s.sador would set up an appointment, there would be a much better chance of his arriving at a time when the president could see him.

Were he on Qo'noS, the Vulcan would have been dead before he could have completed his sentence. Indeed, it had taken much of K'mtok's willpower not to take out his d'k tahg and plunge it into the Vulcan's chest. Still, such actions would not only cause an interstellar incident, but they would also provoke the guard standing at the entrance to the president's office into firing her phaser sidearm at K'mtok, disintegrating him in an instant. He had only been amba.s.sador a few months-he wanted to enjoy it for quite some time.

He was not enjoying waiting, but he would have enjoyed even less waiting until his official appointment tomorrow. This Bacco woman was toying with the empire, and he would have none of it.

The turbolift doors opened to reveal another guard, as well as President Bacco and a Deltan woman K'mtok didn't know. The amba.s.sador only knew she was Deltan from her distinctive scent-Deltans all smelled of fornication. If they weren't such hideous, hairless creatures, K'mtok might have found it invigorating.

"- right," the Bacco woman was saying as she and the bald-headed woman exited the lift and headed toward the door, "but putting you on judiciary's gonna be tricky."

"I believe, Madam President, that it is the least you can do after costing us Brannik IV."

"No, the least I can do after costing you Brannik IV is getting you a water reclamation system that will actually reclaim your water. Anyhow, the appointment's got nothing to do with the deal with the Carreon, it has to do with Artrin resigning. The fun part's gonna be replacing him on the security- " She finally noticed K'mtok. "Mr. Amba.s.sador-I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow."

"Tomorrow will be too late. I will speak to you now."

Bacco turned to Sivak. "Have I got anything else besides Toshiro's shindig?"

"No, ma'am-however, you are already fifteen minutes late for that."

Turning to K'mtok, Bacco said, "Well, I wouldn't be much of a leader if I showed up any sooner than half an hour late to an official function. You've got fifteen minutes, Mr. Amba.s.sador-I suggest you make it good." She then turned to the Deltan. "Councillor, I'll see you at 1330."

"Thank you, Madam President." The Deltan then looked at K'mtok. "Mr. Amba.s.sador."

"Councillor," K'mtok said, realizing that the woman was Eleana, the representative of Delta IV to the Federation Council.

Bacco moved toward the door, where the second guard had also taken up position. She expected K'mtok to follow her without prompting, a compliment the amba.s.sador hadn't been expecting.

As soon as the door shut behind him, K'mtok said, "You are not considering granting asylum to the Remans at your outpost." He deliberately did not phrase it as a question.

"Really? I wasn't aware that precognition was among your many talents, Mr. Amba.s.sador."

K'mtok frowned. "I a.s.sume that was a typical human attempt at humor."

"Actually, my attempts at humor are pretty atypical, but that's neither here nor there."

"That was not a prediction, Madam President, it was a statement."

"Sounded like an order to me."

Shrugging, K'mtok said, "You may interpret it that way if you wish."

"Oh, I don't wish-because, you see, there's only one person who gives orders in this office, and it is most a.s.suredly not you." The woman sat down at her desk and indicated the chair opposite it. "Have a seat, sir."

"I prefer to stand."

With more steel in her voice than K'mtok would have expected from an elderly human woman, she asked, "Remember what I said about giving orders, Mr. Amba.s.sador?"

Under his gray beard, K'mtok smiled as he took the proffered chair. He had dealt with Bacco's predecessor only a few times before his resignation, but K'mtok had had little congress with Bacco herself since her election. Perhaps she will be a more worthy opponent than I expected. She certainly is more invigorating than that spineless Bolian.

"Now then, why don't we start this conversation over again. I believe you had a concern about the Reman refugees at Outpost 22."

"They are not Reman refugees, Madam President. They are Klingon proteges. Under the terms of the Khitomer Accords, you are obliged to turn them over to the empire at our request."

Bacco stared at him for a moment. "I take it that your presence here is that request?"

"Correct."

The president rubbed her chin. "You are aware of the Remans' situation, aren't you?"

"No, nor do I need to be. Madam President, the treaty is clear. The 'situation,' as you put it, is of no consequence. A Defense Force vessel, the I.K.S. Ditagh, is on its way to Outpost 22 right now. It will arrive in four days. At that time, you will turn over all seventy-nine Remans to Captain Vikagh, who will remand them to Klingon custody."

"Oh, will I?" Bacco said with a wholly inappropriate smile.

K'mtok realized that he had once again phrased his statements incorrectly. Most Federation citizens-even ones in positions of power-were intimidated by a Klingon giving orders. This one was made of sterner stuff, her appearance notwithstanding. "Perhaps I phrased that badly, Madam President."

"Drop the 'perhaps,' and I'll agree with you. Look, you want to send the Ditagh to the outpost, that's your right. See, I'm pretty familiar with the Khitomer Accords. For reasons that should be pretty obvious, my staff and I've been reading them over. There are lots of terms to them, some involving trade, some involving weapons bans, some involving extradition-and part of it states that Federation and Klingon ships are allowed to travel freely in the other nation's s.p.a.ce." She leaned forward and placed her hands on the desk, which was of a substance K'mtok was unfamiliar with. "Because I've been familiarizing myself, I happen to know the paragraph you're referring to when you say that if the empire requests that Klingon nationals requesting asylum must be turned over to the empire, they will be. And your situation isn't as cut and dried as you're making it out."

K'mtok was less impressed with this woman now. "Do not be absurd, Madam President. It is, in fact, completely 'cut and dried,' as you so colorfully put it. The treaty is very clear."

"Yeah, it is. It refers to Klingon nationals. That means Klingons who are citizens of the empire, as well as the various subject species. However, it does not apply to the Remans."

"That is ridiculous, the Remans- "

"Are not Klingon nationals. They're not citizens, they're not jeghpu'wI', they're just under your protection."

K'mtok stood up. "This is outrageous! You would deny us our rights because of a semantic difficulty in the treaty?"

Bacco also stood up, which denied K'mtok his ability to look down on the human. "Semantic difficulties in treaties start wars, Mr. Amba.s.sador. Maybe it does apply to the Remans-and maybe it doesn't. It's something that needs to be worked out. Now, if you want to be part of those discussions as a representative of the Klingon Empire, that's just fine. We'd welcome your input-in fact, we encourage it. You're our allies, and we're supposed to work together on this kind of thing. But if you're gonna stick to your guns and insist on the most rigid stance on this without any kind of negotiation, then I am going to be very much inclined to go for the interpretation of the treaty language that serves your purposes the least well, am I understood?" Again, she leaned forward, this time her fists balled on the desk. "Those Remans have been persecuted, Mr. Amba.s.sador, not just by the Romulans, but by their fellow Remans. Their asylum request isn't from you or from Romulus, it's from their brothers and sisters. I think there's a little room to maneuver, don't you?"

Every instinct in K'mtok's body screamed out to tell Bacco that the Remans must be remanded to the empire, and that was that. But Bacco's offer made that difficult. He could, of course, take that position and simply not report Bacco's offer to the High Council-but no, that was too risky. Bacco would inform their amba.s.sador, and that infant that had replaced the toDSaH Worf had Martok's ear. Martok would learn of it one way or the other and then ask why K'mtok had not conveyed it to the council.

"I will consult with my government and inform you of our decision."

Bacco nodded. "Glad to hear it. By the end of the day, if you please."

K'mtok refused to give that ground, having already given so much. "I promise nothing, Madam President. I will inform you of our decision when that decision is made-whenever that may be."

He then turned on his heel and left the president's office. This battlefield will be more difficult than I expected.

Edmund Atkinson had yet to grow tired of the council chambers.

No matter how old and cynical he became-and he was more of both than he liked-he always felt a mild thrill whenever he entered the huge chamber that took up most of the first floor of the Palais de la Concorde. Below the floor ran the Champs Elysees, which the Palais straddled, supported by duranium beams at the four corners. In one of those beams was the turbolift that led to the bas.e.m.e.nt levels.

But, though many cla.s.sified activities went on in the bas.e.m.e.nts, it was in this room that much of the Federation's government work got done. Though the building was cylindrical, the chambers were rectangular. In front of the south wall was the podium emblazoned with the symbol of the United Federation of Planets, which matched that of the flag hanging from the pole behind it. That podium was where the leader of the session stood. During full council sessions, that was the president's place. On the south wall itself was a viewscreen that could be used for a variety of purposes, the most common being the display of vote tallies.

On the east wall were four rows of twenty seats each, with a matching set on the west wall. These one hundred and sixty seats were for the councillors, which currently numbered one hundred and fifty-four. Edmund knew that when the chambers had first been constructed, there had been only one row on either side. When the one hundred and sixty-first planet joined the Federation, two more rows would be added to keep the room's balance, and allow for the next twoscore worlds to be added to the Federation's numbers.

The north wall gallery was where spectators were allowed to observe open sessions. Most sessions of the full council were open to the public, and even the ones that weren't were recorded. Occasionally-regularly, during the Dominion War-sessions were sealed for security reasons. However, this session most a.s.suredly wasn't, which meant that Edmund could watch the session directly. He found that preferable to waiting for Jorel's interpretation of the session after the fact in the press room. Edmund wanted to see who was going to be nominated in Artrin's stead on judiciary-and, of much greater interest, who was going to be nominated to take Artrin's place on security. If someone from the "back eight" of security resigned or was replaced, their seat on that council was always given to another world rather than their replacement.

Edmund's favorite part of the council chamber was the center. That was the speaker's floor. With the exception of the president, no one could speak to the council except from that floor. Councillors could speak to each other or via the workstations in front of them to people outside the chamber, but, in full council sessions, any official council statements for the record had to come either from the podium or the floor. Whoever designed the room had arranged the slant of the roof so that the s.p.a.ce was almost perfect acoustically. One could clearly hear every word from the floor no matter where you sat.

However, more than one person could have the floor, and it didn't have to be a councillor. Some of the greatest debates in Federation history had happened on that floor: President al-Rashid and Councillor (later President) sh'Rothress arguing over what const.i.tuted the proper criteria to admit new members into the then-still-nascent Federation; Amba.s.sador Sarek debating Amba.s.sador Kamarag over the Genesis Device; Sarek again, this time debating his own son Spock about Carda.s.sia; Councillors Gleer of Tellar and T'Latrek of Vulcan arguing over the level of security necessary to prevent changeling infiltration on Earth in the wake of the attack on the Antwerp Conference; and most recently a barely civilized discussion between Amba.s.sador Lwaxana Troi of Betazed and Elim Garak of Carda.s.sia over the allocation of postwar relief efforts.

Edmund wondered what he'd see today. Maybe another T'Latrek-Gleer dogfight. I can get an entire column out of that....

They began with the usual tedious business, including taking a roll call. One hundred and thirty-two of the councillors were present. Edmund knew that several of the ones proximate to the Romulan or Klingon borders had returned to investigate matters on their homeworlds. Also conspicuous by her continued absence was Councillor Eftheria Lo of Ontail. Given all the trouble the Federation went to to keep them in, you'd think they'd at least show up once or twice.

Once the preliminaries were out of the way, Bacco paused for a moment before speaking. "Before we continue, I'd like to offer an apology to the entirety of the Federation Council. Two months ago, I did something incredibly stupid. I neglected to treat all of you-and those of you who are part of this august body but not actually present-with respect. When I expressed my displeasure over our trade agreement with Aligar, I did so in a manner that was unfair to you-indeed, that was insulting to you. I let my own feelings get in the way of my responsibilities to this council and to the Federation. It has led to an unconscionable breakdown in communication between this council and the president's office, and it stops here, now. So let me just say that I am sorry-and let's get to work."

Edmund blinked several times, then made a note in his padd. He'd been covering politics for the Times for thirty years, and he'd never heard a politician make so honest an apology.

"As you all know," Bacco said, "Councillor Artrin resigned this morning. The Triexian Curia will appoint a new councillor within the next week to serve out his term. For obvious reasons, the president's office hereby withdraws his nomination for appointment to the judiciary council. In addition, Triex is now removed from the security council. I hereby nominate for appointment to the judiciary council Councillor Eleana of Delta, and I hereby nominate for appointment to the security council Councillor Krim Aldos of Bajor."

This time, Edmund almost fell out of his chair. Like many people, he believed that Eleana would make a most interesting addition to judiciary, but she had made enough enemies in this room to make her ratification difficult.

Krim, however, was an even bigger risk. He'd been a last-minute replacement as Bajor's first councillor when the original choice had died unexpectedly, almost three and a half years ago.

Edmund made a bet with himself that he quickly won as the light in front of Bera chim Gleer's seat went on, indicating that he wished to speak on the floor. May as well get comfortable, he thought, Gleer doesn't do short speeches.

Was it Edmund's imagination, or did Bacco sound pained when she said, "The podium recognizes the councillor from Tellar"?

The Tellarite councillor stalked down the length of his row and stomped toward the center of the chamber. With his furry hands, he clutched the lapels of the silvery jacket he wore over an embroidered shirt. His pants matched the jacket, making it look like he was glowing. He stared at Bacco with his sunken eyes-which put his back to Edmund-and began to speak.

"With all due respect, Madam President-are you mad? Bajor has only been in the Federation for three years. To put them on the security council is the height of irresponsibility. In addition, I point you to Councillor Krim's record. He was a rebel on Bajor, then supported a coup d'etat that was disgraced. He has spent most of the last decade out of the public eye and had not partic.i.p.ated in the least in the realm of politics until he was placed on this council by his wife, the first minister of Bajor. Is it wise to trust the delicate matters handled on the security council to such a person?"

T'Latrek's light went on, and Edmund thought he was going to burst with excitement. I was hoping she would get into it.

Sounding much more cheered-the president knew the entertainment value of a good floor fight, after all-Bacco said, "The podium recognizes the councillor from Vulcan."

The Vulcan woman glided out from her seat and joined Gleer. Her own arms were not visible in her long, black cloak of office. Her gray-flecked black hair extended past her shoulders and was swept back in a simple, practical style that required no grooming beyond running a brush through it. T'Latrek's eyebrows were severe, her eyes pitiless, her mouth a perfect line perpendicular to a nose that would have been called aristocratic on a human. She fixed those pitiless eyes on Gleer.

"Anyone who lived as an adult on Bajor prior to their liberation from Carda.s.sia twelve years ago and who is in any way politically astute probably was part of their resistance movement. Either that or they collaborated with the Carda.s.sians, and I a.s.sume my colleague would not want such a person to serve on the security council-or on the council at all."

"That goes without saying. I would never support such a person and would be against his being placed on the council."

"For something that goes without saying, you do feel the need to describe it at length," T'Latrek said witheringly.

Score one for the Vulcan, Edmund thought as he made more notes. Gleer looked like someone had urinated in his soup.

"In addition," T'Latrek said, "First Minister Asarem is not Councillor Krim's wife, but rather his ex-wife."

"An irrelevant distinction," Gleer said dismissively.

"To Tellarites, perhaps." Before Gleer could respond to that, T'Latrek said, "However, the reasons why we should ratify Councillor Krim's appointment to the security council have very little to do with Councillor Krim."