2293
Alexandra Tremontaine walked along the wide hall that circled the complex of conference rooms located in the political center. Her low heels hammered along the slate floor, sending echoes reverberating through the open, empty space. She would reach the negotiating session late, nearly half an hour after it had been scheduled to begin. Familiar with the punctuality and the punctiliousness of the Frunalians, she could not imagine that the Federation delegation would have been able to delay the start of the meeting for more than a couple of minutes, if for even that long. Despite that she’d made the trip to Orelte all the way from Earth and that she’d arrived only earlier today, she knew that the Frunalian ambassador, Jalira Tren, would not consider that sufficient reason for her tardiness.
In fact, Tremontaine counted on it.
She stopped before the pair of brushed stainless steel doors that led into the conference room being utilized for the summit. Before entering, she peered down at herself, smoothed the hunter green fabric of her conservative dress, adjusted on her bodice the small pin that described the insignia of the Bureau of Interplanetary Affairs. She consulted the data slate she carried, reviewing the names of the members of the Frunalian and Federation contingents. She’d met everybody present at one time or another, save for the new UFP ambassador, Spock. There had been ample time and opportunity to do so within the last couple of hours, but she’d decided that it would be more advantageous for her to appear at the conference fundamentally unknown to him.
Finally, Tremontaine deactivated her slate, then pulled open one of the doors and strode into the room. Inside, chairs rimmed the oval space, both along the walls and around a similarly shaped table at its center. A large screen dominated the long curve of one wall and currently displayed an image of mountainous, craggy terrain, which Tremontaine assumed to be an area on the planet nearest the Frunalian sun. A ruddy vein of exposed rock likely revealed the presence of the valuable and rare rubindium ore that the UFP had for some time now been seeking the rights to mine.
As Tremontaine paced toward the table, all five individuals present looked over at her from where they sat. Ambassador Tren stood up at one end of the table, and Ambassador Spock followed suit at the other. The one Frunalian aide and the two Federation aides—a Trill woman and a human man—remained seated. “Ambassador Tremontaine,” Tren said. “Welcome back to Orelte.” Tren spoke her words evenly, but Tremontaine knew that the gracious greeting was in no way meant to excuse her lateness.
“How good to see you again, Ambassador,” Tremontaine said. Tren stood several centimeters shorter than her own one-point-eight-five meters, although the fleshy comb that ran from the Frunalian’s brow, across the crown of her head, and down her spine added to her height. That sensory appendage indicated that Tren had already undergone her Shift. She’d also lost both the ridges that had once risen from the backs of her shoulders, along with the entirety of the exomembrane that had covered her sage skin. As well, her four breasts had developed, all of them clearly defined beneath the formfitting metallic suit she wore.
“I’m afraid that this meeting started—” Tren glanced at a chronometer in the center of the table. “—twenty-seven minutes ago. Your appearance here at this time is a disruption.” She did not sound angry or argumentative, but simply as though stating the facts as she saw them.
“My apologies, Ambassador,” Tremontaine said. “As you know, I reached your world only today. I did not intend to get to this conference late, but I was unavoidably detained.”
At the other end of the table, Spock spoke up, and Tremontaine peered over at him. “I’m certain that you can provide an understandable reason for your delayed arrival,” he said. “Nevertheless, it is inappropriate for you to interrupt these proceedings.” Lean and tall, about her own height, the Vulcan had a narrow, weathered face, rather handsome, she thought. He wore gray slacks and a loose, dark blue tunic, down the right side of which marched a series of silver glyphs.
“Actually,” Tremontaine said, holding Spock’s gaze, “my disturbance of this meeting is not only appropriate, but necessary.” She turned to face Tren once more. “Ambassador, I bring word from the Federation that we are withdrawing from these negotiations.”
“What?” the Frunalian aide said, coming up out of his chair. Tren fixed him with a glare and he quickly sat back down without saying another word.
Looking back at Tremontaine, Tren said, “I do not understand. Is the Federation no longer interested in mining our rubindium?”
“My understanding is that we’re as interested as ever,” Tremontaine said. “It is simply that these discussions have continued for quite a while, last year with Ambassador Pelfrey and over the last month with Ambassador Spock. By all appearances, the talks seem to be at an impasse. Consequently, the Federation believes that it can allocate its diplomatic resources to better effect elsewhere.”
“Ambassador Tremontaine,” Spock said with Vulcan calm, “I have received no word of this.”
“I am carrying that word to you now,” Tremontaine said. “I’m sorry that we didn’t have a chance to speak before this session.”
“I cannot offer an official response at this time,” Tren said, clearly unprepared for the turn of events.
“How could we possibly expect you to?” Tremontaine said. “But I’m authorized to remain on Orelte for several more days if you wish me to do so. When your government is ready, I will communicate your message back to the Federation.” She waited for just a moment, and when neither Tren nor Spock said anything further, she turned on her heel and headed back toward the room’s double doors. Before she could exit, though, the Frunalian ambassador called after her.
“Alexandra,” Tren said.
Tremontaine stopped and looked around. “Yes?”
“Can there be no movement on this?” Tren asked. “All of us—” She raised a hand to include Spock and his two aides in her statement. “—have worked hard to reach an agreement, and even though we haven’t to this point, we have made a great deal of progress.”
“I’m sorry, Jalira,” Tremontaine said. “I was given no leeway to allow continuation of these talks.” She paused, as though considering the situation, as though searching for some means of accommodating the Frunalians. She peered for an instant at Spock, whose expression remained impassive. At last, she told Tren again, “I’m sorry.” Then she turned and left the conference room.
Back in the quarters she’d been assigned at the Federation Embassy, Tremontaine waited for the fallout of the unauthorized action she’d just taken.
Spock rapped his knuckles on the dark wooden surface, then listened for a response. He heard nothing, but a few seconds later, the door opened to reveal the ambassador. “Mister Spock,” Tremontaine said, raising her hand in the traditional Vulcan salutation. “I’ve been expecting you. Please come in.”
As Tremontaine stepped aside, Spock held his hand up in reply, then walked past her and into the suite. The large sitting room had been laid out nearly identically to his own here at the embassy, though its appointments reflected human aesthetics rather than Vulcan ones. He waited for Tremontaine to close the door and come farther into the room.
“May I offer you something?” she asked.
“Only information,” Spock said. The news that Tremontaine had brought with her, that the Federation had chosen to remove itself from talks with the Frunalians, had been wholly unexpected. Spock and his two aides had been on Orelte for a month, working daily to reach an accord on rubindium mining rights, and as Ambassador Tren had stated just a short while ago, they had made significant strides. To simply abandon all of that forward movement seemed wasteful to Spock, and unnecessary.
“Information, of course,” Tremontaine said. “Well, to begin with, we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Alexandra Tremontaine of Earth.”
“Spock of Vulcan,” he said, leaning slightly forward in an abbreviated bow. Tremontaine need not have identified herself. Even before she had entered the conference room earlier, even before Spock had been notified by the Bureau of Interplanetary Affairs that she would be joining his team, he’d been familiar with the ambassador—or at least with some of the work she’d done. Tremontaine had served the Federation in her current capacity for more than twenty-five years, in a career that had provided quite a few noteworthy accomplishments, including mediating an end to the war on Epsilon Canaris III, convincing the Gorn Hegemony to enter into a long-term ceasefire with the Federation, and establishing a far-reaching program that supplied medical aid to nonaligned worlds.
“Let’s sit,” Tremontaine said, and she moved around a low, square table to take a seat on an ornately crafted settee. Spock sat down on a matching piece opposite her. Although he had over the years viewed numerous holos of Ambassador Tremontaine in which she’d sported a variety of looks—short hair, long, blonde, brunette, redheaded, and in diverse styles—he had never before seen this particular configuration of her appearance: her lengthy fair-haired locks had been pulled back from her face and gathered behind her head in a complicated bun. She had bright blue eyes and delicate features, and physically, she reminded Spock of a woman he had once known in the cloud-city of Stratos. “So how is Jalira taking the news?” Tremontaine asked. She projected a confident air.
“If by ‘the news’ you mean the Federation’s withdrawal from the negotiations,” Spock said, “Ambassador Tren seems to be at a loss to understand it. I must confess that I am as well.”
“I’m not surprised,” Tremontaine commented.
“When I was informed that you had completed your dealings with the Medusans and would be joining our delegation here,” Spock said, “I was told that the decision had been made as a result of your familiarity with the Frunalians in general and with Ambassador Tren in particular. Why then would you be sent here simply to terminate the conference?”
“I probably wouldn’t be,” Tremontaine said.
The assertion puzzled Spock. “I am uncertain how to interpret that statement,” he said.
“I probably wouldn’t have been sent to Orelte just to pull the Federation out of these talks,” Tremontaine said. “The reality is that the UFP position hasn’t changed: we still want to mine the rubindium in this system.”
“As you indicated to Ambassador Tren,” Spock noted.
“What I mean is that I was not instructed to withdraw from the negotiations,” Tremontaine said. “I was assigned here to assist you in reaching an agreement for those mining rights.”
The revelation astonished Spock. “Then your announcement to Ambassador Tren was a lie,” he said.
“If you must categorize it in such a way, I would suggest the term prevarication, or better yet, subterfuge,” Tremontaine said. “But really it was merely a diplomatic tactic.”
“I do not deem dishonesty a legitimate tool of diplomacy,” Spock said. Although he had sometimes practiced deception in his life, most often as a Starfleet officer engaged in combat and other dangerous situations, he believed in the sensibilities of his people. As a rule, Vulcan culture held lying to be anathema. Further, the forging of relationships, whether between two individuals or two societies, required trust, and trust required truthfulness.
“In theory, Mister Spock—and perhaps even in practice—I agree with you,” Tremontaine said. “But the reality is that I did not lie today.” She stood up and made her way from the sitting area over to where a mahogany hutch stood against a wall. “Are you sure I can’t offer you something to eat or drink?” she said.
“Quite sure,” Spock said.
Tremontaine shrugged, selected a data card from a shallow drawer in the hutch, then slipped the thin red slab into a nearly invisible slot. Spock heard a muffled whir, not unlike that of a transporter, and then the sound faded back into silence. The doors of the hutch, engraved in graceful swirls, slid open to reveal the interior of a food synthesizer. On the materialization platform sat a porcelain cup. Tremontaine picked it up and the doors glided closed. She returned to the settee, but rather than sitting down, she stood behind it and peered across at Spock.
“You told Ambassador Tren that the Federation was withdrawing from the negotiations,” he said to her, “but you just told me that you were not sent here for that purpose.”
“That’s true, but in neither instance did I lie,” Tremontaine said, then paused to take a sip from her cup. Wisps of steam rose above its rim. “The BIA has given me a good deal of autonomy here, based upon my previous experiences with the Frunalians. I initially intended to come here and add my voice to yours, perhaps provide a different perspective. After reviewing your reports, though, I concluded that, even with the progress you’ve made, Jalira Tren remains a long way from granting us the rights to mine their rubindium. For that reason, and because the Federation does have other pressing needs for its diplomatic corps, I decided that this process needed to be either accelerated or abandoned. So unless Ambassador Tren in the next few days offers a compelling reason to resume the talks, they will be over, Mister Spock, and you and I will be leaving Orelte.” She sipped again at her cup, then added, “But Jalira will want to continue the talks, and at that point, we’ll be able to reach an agreement in short order.”
“That,” Spock said, “seems like arrogant conjecture.”
“Oh, I disagree,” Tremontaine said. She spoke with no hint of having taken any insult from Spock’s characterization. She walked back around to the front of the settee and sat down again, placing her cup on the table. “Conjecture is the formation of a judgment based upon incomplete information. That’s not the case here. I have your reports of the summit, as well as my knowledge and experience with the Frunalians and Ambassador Tren. I decided on a course of action not through conjecture, but through rational deduction. As for arrogance, well, I don’t feel particularly self-important right now, but I’ll accept your observation. Fortunately, that’s not relevant to the success or failure of our mission.”
Spock peered at Tremontaine, trying to take her measure. She did not speak without emotion, but she did maintain a levelness he found both convincing and compelling. What he had at first viewed as conceit, he now judged as self-assurance, the dividing line being the logic by which she’d apparently arrived at her conclusions. Still, she had acted unilaterally, and he questioned her about that. “You reached Orelte today several hours prior to today’s session,” he said, “sufficient time for you to seek me out and detail your intentions. May I ask why you did not?”
Tremontaine glanced down at her cup on the table, then reached forward and picked it up again. Spock perceived her hesitation in answering as either uncertainty or regret, and he thought she utilized the physical action of retrieving her cup as an attempt to camouflage the feeling. “For that, I’m sorry, Mister Spock,” she said, looking back over at him. “I’m certainly aware of your long record of exploits aboard the Enterprise and the masterful job you did as a special envoy to Chancellor Gorkon. But for all of that, I didn’t know you personally, and so I couldn’t be sure how you would react to my strategy or how easy or difficult it would be for you to help me carry it out. I chose the path with the fewest unknowns, and therefore the path I could be most certain of traversing successfully.”
“Reasonable,” Spock said. It seemed clear that Ambassador Tremontaine had not acted without forethought.
“Thank you, Mister Spock,” Tremontaine said. “I take that as a great compliment, coming from your disciplined mind.”
Spock dipped his head in acknowledgment of the returned accolade. “Am I to take it then,” he asked, “that your plan now is simply to wait for an official response from Ambassador Tren?”
“It is,” Tremontaine said. “Later, I’ll make arrangements for our departure, say, two days from now. That’s something Jalira might check just to make sure that we’re not bluffing.”
Spock stood up. “It would appear that there is nothing else we need discuss then,” he said.
“Actually,” Tremontaine said, hastily setting her cup back down and rising from the settee, “even though I’ve read your accounts of the negotiations here, I think I’d like to discuss your experiences with you directly.”
“Very well,” Spock said. “Do you wish to do so now or shall we schedule another time?”
“Are you a vegetarian, Mister Spock?” she asked, the question an apparent non sequitur.
“I am,” he said.
“So am I,” Tremontaine said. “I know an excellent restaurant on the far side of the city. I was thinking that perhaps we could have our discussion over dinner.”
Spock blinked. He could not be certain, but he thought that Tremontaine’s invitation might be motivated by more the just her desires for sustenance and information; he thought that she might be attracted to him. It had been some while since Spock had noticed anything of this sort, and an even longer time since he’d been in any way involved with a woman. In addition to the dearth of opportunities over the years, owing to the rigors of his Starfleet duty and to his own solitary nature, there had also been the complications with Saavik.
Eight years earlier, after Spock had perished aboard the Enterprise, his body had been revivified and rejuvenated on the Genesis Planet, aging rapidly to maturity and triggering the pon farr. In order to prevent the unfulfilled mating urges from killing Spock, Saavik had bonded with him. Later, after he’d undergone the fal-tor-pan and his katra had been reunited with his restored physical self, the link with Saavik had remained. Although both of them had recognized the logic of her decision to do what she’d done, neither of them had been comfortable with the idea of allowing their connection to stand; Spock had been Saavik’s mentor, she his student, and their joining had been born of necessity. Eventually, when the time had been right, the two of them had returned to Vulcan together, where they’d successfully undertaken the rel-san-vek: the dissolution.
Now, free of that encumbrance, Spock stood in Ambassador Alexandra Tremontaine’s suite, faced with what should have been a simple choice to make. Having sensed Tremontaine’s interest in him, accepting her request to dine together could easily mislead her into thinking that he reciprocated that interest. He would not wish to do that…except—
Except that this woman does intrigue me, Spock thought. He appreciated the clarity with which she’d analyzed the Frunalians’ position, the decisiveness and confidence with which she’d acted, and the composed manner in which she conducted herself. “Yes,” Spock said. “I’ll join you for dinner.”
“Wonderful,” Tremontaine said. She did not smile, but Spock could still tell that his answer pleased her. He moved to the door and opened it for her, then followed her out. They exited the embassy, then walked across the city together, their conversation coming easily. At first, they spoke of the Frunalians and Ambassador Tren and stable rubindium ore, but over dinner the discussion moved on to other topics. Tremontaine asked about Spock’s choice to join the Bureau of Interplanetary Affairs and about his service in Starfleet. For his part, Spock found himself curious about the ambassador’s career, as well as what had driven her to pursue a vocation in diplomacy. By the time they retired to their own suites later that night, they had spent five hours with each other.
The next morning, Jalira Tren requested a resumption of negotiations, offering an extensively reworked proposal from which to recommence the talks. Three days later, Spock and Tremontaine departed Orelte, the Federation mining rights to the Frunalian rubindium secured.