"It's a personal touch, Sivak."

"Whatever excuse you feel compelled to give to cover your inability to remember how to use the intercom from day to day is- "

Gesturing to the inside of her office, the president interrupted her a.s.sistant. "Come in, please, Doctor, we've got a lot to talk about."

Emmanuelli got up and followed the president in. Seated on the couch was the very same chief of staff she'd spoken to before, Esperanza Piniero, as well as Chirurgeon P'Trell. I guess I should've expected Ghee to be here, Emmanuelli thought with a sigh. They weren't going to make it easy on her.

Well, I'm not gonna make it easy on them, either.

"Have a seat," the president said as she herself sat in one of the chairs perpendicular to the couch.

Rebecca took the chair facing the president, grateful that Bacco had given her the opportunity to sit face-to-face. The president could just as easily have chosen to preside at her desk, with all the power that conveyed. Instead, she was treating this as a conversation among equals, even though it most a.s.suredly wasn't. Rebecca truly appreciated the gesture.

"My head speechwriter has this thing for old, dead languages. He likes to put references to them in my speeches. Half the time I take 'em out, since I don't think it's such a hot idea to try to convey something to people by using words they're not gonna understand. But thanks to him, I know all kinds of odd bits and pieces in Latin and ancient Greek and the like. So I know a certain phrase that goes, primum non nocere. It's the start of an oath you- "

Rebecca had intended to interrupt much sooner, but it had taken her this long to screw up the courage to do so. "Madam President, with all due respect, I think throwing the Hippocratic oath in my face is cheap."

"Maybe it is, Doctor, but so's what you're doing."

Aghast, Rebecca asked, "I beg your pardon?"

"You're not the only one who took an oath, Doctor. I took one a little over a year ago, and it said that I would lead the Federation and do what was best for its people."

"And how does my operating on a Tzenkethi fulfill that oath, ma'am?" Rebecca asked in a tight voice.

"First of all, it's not 'a Tzenkethi.' It's a two-year-old boy named Zormonk. Secondly, the Tzenkethi have been at loggerheads with us for decades. We fought more than one war against them, and they still view us as some kind of evil empire that has to be stamped out of the galaxy. Not a day goes by without our press liaison coming across some piece of anti-Federation propaganda from the Tzelnira."

"Ma'am, I'm aware of what the Tzelnira are capable of. In fact, I think I know better than anyone in the Federation, to say nothing of anyone in this room."

"True. I know what you went through was horrible, but- "

"Horrible? Ma'am, it would have to improve by several thousand orders of magnitude before it got as good as horrible!" Realizing that she was yelling at the president, Rebecca took a breath and said in a softer voice, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but you have to understand what they did. It wasn't just that they held me prisoner, and it wasn't just that they forced me to treat their sick and injured. They only let me treat certain people-certain important people, who were worthy of it. I had to let two women, one man, and three children die because they weren't of the right social caste while I wasted my time operating on the cousin of one of the Tzelnira who had no hope of recovery, no matter what I did, which I told them over and over, but they forced me to do it anyhow, and he still died. And then, when the armistice happened, they told the Federation I was dead and kept me there. My husband remarried, my children grieved for me-and then when I came back, it destroyed my husband's new marriage, and my children blamed me for lying to them. So ma'am, please, don't presume to tell me that you know anything about what I went through."

Somehow, Rebecca managed to keep her composure. It helped that she had been rehearsing this very confrontation for the past two weeks. She felt like her chest was about to explode, but outwardly she remained calm.

The president sat and listened to everything she said. Then she picked up a padd from the table in front of her. "For the last five days, we've been getting more reports from Tzenketh-things about the son of one of the Tzelnira being kidnapped by the Federation and being experimented on."

Unable to contain a snort of derisive laughter, Rebecca said, "Ma'am, if you're trying to convince me to perform the operation- "

"I'm not finished."

In a small voice, Rebecca said, "I'm sorry, ma'am." She suspected she had tested the president's patience as much as she was going to get away with.

"There've been statements from almost every member of the Tzelnira. The one exception is Zaarok. His son's the one who's supposedly been kidnapped, yet there's nothing from him." She set that down and picked up another padd. "Technically you're not cleared to know this next part, but I'm invoking executive privilege. This is a Starfleet Intelligence report that indicates that Zaarok has been secretly put in prison for sending Zormonk to the enemy." She put that padd down. "You yourself just said you know better than anyone else in this room what a Tzenkethi prison is like. This is a member of the most privileged cla.s.s in Tzenkethi society, and he's cooperated with his people's greatest enemy and allowed himself to be imprisoned because he wants his son to live."

The president stood up. So much for being on equal footing, Rebecca thought.

President Bacco started pacing back and forth. "I can very easily order you to do this, Doctor. So could Chirurgeon P'Trell, and you'd be obligated to follow it or face severe consequences. But I'm not going to do that, because that would defeat the whole point. If you performed this operation under duress, or went to prison because of it, then it would be just like what the Tzenkethi did to you. And there's no way I'm going to allow something like that. Instead, I'm asking you-I'm begging you-to look at what Zaarok did. He made a choice. He put aside his own people's prejudices, went against every principle that the government he represents lives by in order to save a two-year-old boy who never did anything to anyone."

Stopping at her desk, the president leaned against it. Rebecca noticed that she was leaning right next to a rotating holo of a young girl who resembled the president but definitely wasn't her. There were other pictures too: an adult with the same face as the girl, whom Rebecca realized was the president's daughter, along with three children; another of just the children; and finally a wedding photo of two people who were neither the president nor her daughter. Rebecca suspected that the president stood by reminders of family on purpose.

"We have such a great opportunity here, Doctor. For the first time ever, we have a chance to bridge the gap between the Federation and the Tzenkethi, to show that our people can work together for the greater good instead of perpetuating the evils of being opposed. But the only way that's going to happen is if you go back to Starbase 1 and save Zormonk's life. If you don't, then we've got someone else unjustly placed in a Tzenkethi prison, a dead child, and an enemy that will be more vicious than before, because they'll have the corpse of the son of a member of the Tzelnira who died under Federation care."

The president walked back over to the chair and sat down. "Understand something else, Doctor-if you still refuse, then that'll be the end of it. There'll be no reprimands, no censure, no blackballing. Chirurgeon P'Trell and I have agreed that you have every reason to hate the Tzenkethi and what they did to you. You can go right back to Starbase 1 and continue your career without any repercussions."

Rebecca found that impossible to credit. Even if there were no official repercussions, she knew that lines would be drawn. Some would view her as the one who'd refused to save a child's life. Others-those who'd fought the Tzenkethi or knew those who had-would support her, telling her she'd done the right thing.

This one decision would define the rest of her life.

She thought back to the look of anguish on Raphael's face when he'd introduced her to the woman he'd married two years after she'd been declared dead. The overwhelming feeling of joy she'd felt when she'd materialized in the Saratoga transporter room. The knife-twist of Daniel and Gustavo's anger, projecting the bile that only a teenager could muster at a mother who they thought had abandoned them. The horror of watching those six people die so she could perform a pointless operation. The bone-sore agony of her cell, a cold, windowless room where she'd lived between treatments, with only a flat piece of cloth and two buckets for furniture.

Then she thought about Zaarok, whom she'd met more than once in her time as prisoner, who'd referred to her as the "pet doctor," sitting in a cell just like that one.

The thought gave her immense pleasure.

However, Zaarok, she suspected, would remain in that cell no matter what happened. He had violated Tzenkethi law, and he had consorted with their worst enemy. No, his suffering would be long and hard-and it would be made worse by the knowledge that he'd failed, that his son had died.

And then she thought about Daniel and Gustavo, who hadn't spoken to her in fifteen years. Yet if she found out they were sick and that only a Tzenkethi doctor could save them, what would she do?

Just what Zaarok had done.

She realized something else as well: If she refused to do this, she was finished as a physician. The president's a.s.surances notwithstanding, if she let a patient die due to her own negligence, she would have violated the very oath the president tried to guilt her with, and she would no longer be worthy of her medical degree-in her own mind, if in no one else's.

"All right," she said in a small voice.

"I'm sorry?" the president said.

Louder, Rebecca said, "I'll do it. G.o.d help me, I'll-I'll do it."

Esperanza felt like a black hole had opened up in her stomach. She got off the turbolift on fifteen and walked slowly toward the president's office door.

Sivak gave her one of his looks. "The meeting has already commenced. President Bacco has expressed surprise at your tardiness, and also instructed me to- "

Ignoring him, Esperanza went into the president's office. Ashante, Myk, Dogayn, and Z4 were all present, as were Fred, Admiral Akaar, Safranski, and Raisa Shostakova.

"About time you got here, Esperanza," said the president, who was leaning against the front of her desk. "We- "

"Ma'am, I just got a message from Starbase 1. Zormonk is-is dead."

The president's face fell. "What?"

"According to Dr. Emmanuelli's report, the cal-tai was too advanced. If she had been able to get to him sooner-even as little as a month sooner-she might have had a chance to save him."

"d.a.m.n."

"There's more, ma'am. According to Chirurgeon P'Trell's report, Dr. Emmanuelli went to extraordinary lengths to try to save him, long past the point where most doctors would have given up, and he's put her in for a commendation." She took a breath, then added, "She accepted the commendation right before she resigned her commission, effective immediately."

The president's office grew very quiet. It stayed that way for some time.

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

NAN BACCO ADMIRED THE VIEW through the shuttlecraft window of the verdant field where the signing ceremony would be taking place. Thousands of Koas-large arach-noids with octopus-like heads-were already gathered to watch the event, which would end with Koa's official entry into the United Federation of Planets.

The shuttle belonged to the U.S.S. Venture, which had escorted the president to the Mu Arae system for the ceremony. That vessel was in orbit, alongside the U.S.S. da Vinci, which was formally representing Starfleet at the signing ceremony. Normally a tiny Saber-cla.s.s vessel attached to the Starfleet Corps of Engineers wouldn't be a.s.signed to represent Starfleet at a signing-indeed, that was the type of duty that the Galaxy-cla.s.s Venture generally had-but it had been the da Vinci crew who'd aided the Koas when they'd moved their planet to its new home, including deciphering the controls on the box into which the planet had been placed and opening it to let the planet out. The da Vinci crew were heroes in the Koas' eyes.

When the shuttle touched down, Nan started walking slowly to the rear. Esperanza was next to her, and she said, "You've been awfully quiet, ma'am."

Chuckling, Nan said, "I'd think you'd have been relieved."

"Well, going an entire shuttle trip without a lecture on the physics of traveling in a box, or the history of the S.C.E., or more gnashing of teeth about the Pioneers not making the Series was something of a relief, ma'am, but it's pretty out of character."

"Yeah, I guess." Nan sighed as she disembarked. They had landed about thirty meters from the backstage area, where Caliph Sicarios, as well as Councillors Mazibuko and Jix and several members of the da Vinci crew, were waiting to greet her. As they traversed that distance, Kenshikai, Aoki, Rydell, and T'r'wo'li'i' walking alongside them, she said, "I've just been thinking about all the c.r.a.p that's come down. The Tzenkethi are hopping mad about Zormonk, the Imperial Romulan State is making things even worse in Romulan s.p.a.ce, which I wouldn't have thought possible, it's looking increasingly likely that Gelemingar's bill is going to pa.s.s, which is gonna be an absolute nightmare, and the Tholians are acting up again. Plus, of course, there's the Pioneers, which I'd managed to put out of my head until you kindly reminded me, thank you so much."

Esperanza smirked. "My pleasure, ma'am." Then her face grew more serious. "Ma'am, do you remember when you visited my parents one time when I was about nine-it was right after I had a fight with one of my friends in school?"

Nan frowned. "No." She chuckled. "Honestly, Esperanza, there was no way in h.e.l.l I could keep track of what you were carrying on about at that age-I just nodded a lot and let you babble on incoherently."

"That explains why I find the tactic so useful against you, ma'am-knew there was karmic justice in the galaxy. In any case," she said quickly to overlay another snide remark, "there was one time where I'd gotten into a fight with my best friend, Irina. All our other friends took her side, and I felt like I was all alone. I told you that I hated all my friends and I was never gonna speak to them again. You told me that I shouldn't say things like that, because friends are too important. I said they were all awful and weren't my friends anymore, and you said for me to think back to all the nice things they'd done for me."

Nan smiled. "You're saying I should pay attention to the good stuff I've done?"

"Well, I could mention that you kept the Reman situation from getting out of hand, or that you opened up trade talks with a new species that was ready to break off with us because their people got sick. I could say that you strengthened our relationship with the Klingons to the best it's been since the war, which is impressive, since the alliance was on the brink of falling apart when you took office. I could talk about all the legislation you got pa.s.sed or the good decisions you made or that you got the Deltans and the Carreon to talk to each other." She smiled. "But I think I'll just stick with this: The Federation's still intact. So nice job, so far."

Nan couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, I guess. Of course, you left off one thing." They were now coming to the backstage.

"What's that?"

"I get to be the one to welcome a new world into the Federation."

"Yeah, ma'am-fun job, isn't it?"

Again, Nan laughed. "It has its moments." She approached the leader of the Koas. "Caliph Sicarios, I'm President Nan Bacco. It's truly an honor to meet you, sir."

"Thank you, Madam President, for honoring us in this way-and for all that your Federation has done for us."

Nan shook her head. "Don't be ridiculous-we should be the ones to thank you."

"I do not understand. We have done nothing."

"Nothing?" Nan's eyes widened. "Caliph, I've read the reports, not to mention your planet's history. You heard tales of a great federation, one that accepted anyone and everyone. So you shrunk your planet down and put it into a pyramid in the vague hope that those tales might possibly be true. You are a brave and n.o.ble people, and it is the Federation who should be thanking you for letting us enjoy the fruits of your bravery and your n.o.bility."

An odd excretion appeared near Sicarios's head, which Nan supposed was probably their equivalent of tears. "You do us honor, Madam President. This is the beginning of a new age for Koa."

"For the Federation, too, Caliph. I understand you'll be representing your world to the Federation Council?"

"Yes, ma'am, I will."

"Then I look forward to a lot more conversations with you when you report to Earth for the next session." She indicated the staircase that led to the stage. "Now, then-let's get you people joined up."

"Thank you, Madam President."

Appendix

KNOWN PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS.

What follows is an incomplete and partly conjectural list of people who have served in the office of Federation president since the nation's founding in 2161. If the president in question appeared or was mentioned in a movie, episode, or work of fiction other than this volume, it is cited.

Haroun al-Rashid. Human male. One of the first presidents of the Federation, serving in the twenty-second century.

T'Maran. Vulcan female. One of the first presidents of the Federation, serving in the twenty-second century.

Avaranthi sh'Rothress. Andorian shen. One of the first presidents of the Federation, serving in the twenty-second century. Former Andorian councillor.

Madza Bral. Trill female. Served in the early twenty-third century. First person not from one of the five founding worlds of the Federation to be elected president.

Kenneth Wescott. Human male. President during the Klingon conflict and subsequent signing of the Organian Peace Treaty, in 2267. Declined to run for reelection in 2268. One of the fifteenth-floor meeting rooms in the Palais de la Concorde is named for him. (Star Trek: Errand of Fury Book 1: Seeds of Rage by Kevin Ryan.) Lorne McLaren. Human male. Former Starfleet officer. Elected president in 2268. (Star Trek Core Games Book by Last Unicorn Games.) Hiram Roth. Human male. President during the so-called Genesis incident, as well as the attack on Earth of a probe seeking out humpback whales and the subsequent rebuilding, all in 2285-2286. Died in 2288 on the day that he won another term in a landslide victory. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.) Ra-ghoratreii. Efrosian male. Elected during the first special election in Federation history after the death of President Roth. Served during the a.s.sa.s.sination of Chancellor Gorkon and subsequent signing of the Khitomer Accords in 2293. Served three terms. One of the fifteenth-floor meeting rooms is named after him. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) Thelianaresth th'Vorothishria. Andorian than. President during initial talks with Carda.s.sian Union in 2327. Former Starfleet officer. Had a chateau built to serve as his residence, which is now the permanent home of the president, named the Chateau Thelian in his honor. (Star Trek: Enter the Wolves by A.C. Crispin & Howard Weinstein.) T'Pragh. Vulcan female. Served during the Tzenkethi War in the mid-twenty-fourth century.

Amitra. Pandrilite female. Was a cabinet member under three prior presidents. Moved presidential office to the smaller Ra-ghoratreii Room. Her sole term ended in 2368.

Jaresh-Inyo. Grazerite male. President during both the quadrant-wide paranoia regarding Founder infiltration prior to the Dominion War and the Klingon withdrawal from the Khitomer Accords in 2372. Former Grazer councillor. Lost reelection bid after Starfleet tricked him into declaring martial law in 2372. ("Homefront," "Paradise Lost," "Extreme Measures" [DS9]: Star Trek: A Time for War, a Time for Peace by Keith R.A. DeCandido.) Min Zife. Bolian male. President during the Dominion War and its aftermath, after being elected in 2372. Moved presidential office back to the larger s.p.a.ce, returning the Ra-ghoratreii Room to its original purpose as a meeting room. Resigned three years into his second term in 2379 to avoid public disclosure of Tezwa scandal. (Star Trek: A Time to Kill by David Mack, Star Trek: A Time to Heal by David Mack, Star Trek: A Time for War, a Time for Peace by Keith R.A. DeCandido, Trill: Unjoined by Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels.) Nanietta Bacco. Human female. Elected in second special election, held after Zife's resignation. Former governor of Cestus III. (Star Trek: A Time for War, a Time for Peace by Keith R.A. DeCandido.)