After the debriefing, I make my way back to the Messalina and my quarters. I am tired, and deeply troubled over the unanswered questions we still have.
I am not so tired that I do not immediately spot the object lying on my bed.
I remain quite still for a second, then draw out my tricorder, slowly and carefully. The object does not respond as I activate the scanning function. It is what it appears to be... a small commercial holo-emitter, suitable for mementoes or messages. There is a trace of organic material, but nothing that registers as harmful.
But how did it get there? I take a nervous step towards the bed, then another. The emitter does not react. I reach out, holding my breath, and touch its playback control.
Thyvesh's image, transparent and faintly luminous, appears in the air over the emitter.
"By the time you see this," his voice says, "I will be dead. It is unfortunate, but it cannot, now, be avoided. I tried to avoid it, the first time."
His voice sounds stronger and more certain than I remember it. Perhaps it is the knowledge of his impending death that makes him concentrate.
"The first time someone found the weapons cache at Priyanapari, it was a Tal Shiar Commander working for a General Vorkov, who wanted a political advantage against a rival named Hakeev. This Commander found the doorway, attracted my attention, and compelled me, by - methods I will not describe - to comply with her wishes. She was ruthless. She was clever. Her name was T'Laihhae i-Kanai tr'Aellih."
I feel the blood drain out of my face.
"She drove me to acquire my current levels of awareness, to enhance my sensitivity to the chroniton streams. She thought it would make me a better tool. She was right, I suppose - but the enhanced sensitivity also gave me more control over the doorway. I used that. I went back to a decision point, took a step.... I planted suspicion in Vorkov's mind, made him take a step that turned T'Laihhae against him. Turned you against him. Together, we built the console, and used that to circumvent the original you. Then I went back, to teach the techniques that she had made me learn, to an earlier me, before I ever met her. With your time-track and mine subverted, the original events at Priyanapari - simply never happened."
I stare dumbly at the image. The voice continues.
"I wanted to go on, but... it is not possible. That is what I discovered. The increased sensitivity to the time streams... forced me to an awareness. To the awareness that there was no way the Suliban could win. For all our weapons, all our ingenuity. We could divert the time stream, we could blast whole civilizations into nonexistence... but we could only work with what we had, and what we had was not enough. For the Suliban to become the dominant galactic power, we would have to change things... too much. Either make the galaxy a wrecked thing, not worth the trouble of dominating... or make the Suliban into something that was no longer Suliban. That simple knowledge... that was enough to break my earlier self. To break me. To know that, whatever I did, however I tried, the cause to which I had given my life - was futile."
His voice drops. "I knew, even then, that something else would happen. That there would be more meddlers in time, that the archive would be uncovered again. And I knew... it would have to end, and I would have to end along with it. I knew your abilities. I knew you would find some way to destroy the archive. And I knew... I know, now... that my own timeline would have to turn to a closed circle, somewhere within it."
He takes a deep breath. "As I make this recording, I know my younger self is looking for me. He will demand that I teach him the awareness techniques which disillusioned me to the point of madness. I know that, when I do so, he will realize what I realized. He will lash out, will kill me, in response. I welcome it. I have lived a long life, and much of it several times over. It needs to end."
His voice is so low that it is barely audible. "Goodbye, T'Laihhae. I will not ask for your forgiveness."
The image winks out.
I stand there, staring at the emitter, for a long time. I do not know what I feel about this. I do not know how to feel about this. I have always thought of Thyvesh as a friend. Now I know... that he made me what I am. That he set up the situation in which I betrayed another friend to execution... that, without him, I would have been - what? Something which I now despise - but that I would not have despised, without him -
I do not know what to feel. I think, perhaps, I never will.
I pick the emitter up, and feel something rattle inside it. There is a compartment in it - often the case, with these commercial gadgets; a little space for a trinket, a physical memento. I find the compartment, open it.
The rank badge drops into my hand. It is a conventional enough raptor, but twisted, crushed and bent. There are old, dried bloodstains on it. I close my hand around it, and my fingers fit perfectly. My badge. My blood. From the time when I took it off, crushed it, dropped it into the dust.
From the day that Thyvesh made me.
He took two Romulan soldiers, made one a corpse, made another a hero of the Republic. Perhaps it is best that he is dead. Because nobody should have that much power.
I trusted him. And, in the end, I left him to his death, and destroyed his life's work forever. Justice, perhaps? Betrayal wrapped around betrayal, and the last treason is also the first.
I put the badge back in the compartment, and close it. I find an empty shelf and put the holo-emitter on it. Then I go to my bed, lie down, and stare at the ceiling. I am desperately tired, but sleep will be a long time coming.
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