Star Trek: Brinkmanship by Una McCormack

their number someone named Heldon to speak on their behalf. Heldon, small as a Ferengi, rounded, and with lustrous silver fur, received the away team with exactly the coolness that Dax (up-to-date on Picard’s reports from Venette) had been expecting. She made it abundantly clear that the presence of these Federation visitors might be tolerated but was hardly welcome.
    “I suggest we begin with the docking circles,” she said with a sigh, waving to them to follow her. Alden, walking beside Dax, gave her a look: What else did we expect?
    As they went along, Dax studied her surroundings with interest. The lighting on the base was clear as daylight, with a faint green-gold tint, and the air seemed as fresh as a spring morning. With the slight concave bow in the walls, Dax felt faintly as if she was walking through a forest. She knew that Venetan design emphasized concord between natural and artificial elements: in fact, it did not admit the existence of such a distinction. But that gave the base a rather unsettling impression of having been woven from natural fibers.
    “Is it just me,” muttered Hyatt from behind Dax’s shoulder, “or has this place been knitted? ”
    When they came to the docking circles, all seemed ordinary and orderly, but Dax hadn’t exactly been expecting to be taken directly to the weapons sites. Coming to a halt by a large viewing window, shelooked out across the base’s primary ring to where zero- g building crews were busy at work. Most were wearing EV suits of Venetan design, with an almost barklike exterior, but here and there Dax saw the distinctive phosphorescent glow of a Tzenkethi suit. She couldn’t decipher the markings on the shells, but she hazarded a guess that they signified that their occupants were engineers, overseeing and directing the work. The whole display was a model, Dax thought, for peaceful cooperation between species and friendship between a larger power and its independent allies.
    If only the Tzenkethi engineers were standing over the Venetan construction workers with whips, Dax thought. If only they were Federation engineers. If only I knew why these docking facilities were being expanded in the first place . . .
    “Why all this work?” she asked Heldon. “What’s wrong with the docking facilities already here? They look fine to me.” If crocheted.
    “Tzenkethi freighters are larger than anything we have previously had to accommodate,” Heldon said. “Our facilities were insufficiently able to cope with the demands that will be put upon them by Tzenkethi supply ships.”
    From the look of them, these new facilities would certainly be able to cope; they were large enough for Tzenkethi freighters. The question was, would they also be large enough for their warships? Dax sighed, leaned back against the transparent aluminum, and folded her arms. Heldon gave a dry smile. She had ice-blueeyes and dark streaks of fur that ran back from her brow up her forehead, giving her a permanently quizzical and amused look.
    “I know what’s at the forefront in your mind, Dax. Why don’t you ask?”
    “Because I don’t want to give offense,” Dax said. To her surprise, Heldon’s smile actually broadened.
    “At last,” Heldon said, “an honest response! Frankness goes a long way with us. I’ll pay you the compliment of being frank with you. We’re not warmongers, whatever you’re telling yourselves. We’re an old people, looking to share everything we’ve learned with the wider quadrant. We offered the hand of friendship to your Federation first. You refused that offer, but the Tzenkethi have welcomed it.” Seeing that Dax was about to object, Heldon went on, “Be honest, Dax. Would you be bothering with us if we weren’t drawing closer to your enemies? Would you be here now, to meet me, to learn more about me and my culture, if the Tzenkethi weren’t here?”
    “No,” admitted Dax. “I probably wouldn’t.”
    Again Heldon smiled. “Less than an hour in