Zeila was their leader. But they would not let her speak.

With her usual brash stride, the Curister of the planet Alaj ascended the five steps to the platform and sized up the scene, watching as at least a hundred thousand people overflowed the Great Plaza of Swatarra City. Grim-faced, they waved their protest signs, pumping them high in the air, up toward a sky tarnished by a polluted haze. Zeila knew they were not here to listen.

It was she who would have to listen.

And she did. First, to a discordant rumble ragged with anger. Then the clatter of random shouts aimed at her like wobbly arrows, insults and accusations hurled at both her and her government. Her government, not theirs.

Perhaps there'd been a moment when she could have broken through the resistance and reached out to them. Perhaps not. In any case, it was gone in the space of a breath, overtaken by a collective chant that demanded the replacement of Curister Zeila and her regime.

From somewhere to the right of the podium, the chant changed. One small group along the plaza's edge began to sing. It took Zeila a moment to recognize it as the Alajian anthem. They sang it not with the stirring pomp of the march, but with the muffled cadence of a dirge. They sang with more than their voices. They sang with their souls.

The song spread until the city square trembled with the thunder of one hundred thousand voices, echoing off the dingy buildings bordering the perimeter.

Zeila stood transfixed, gripping the podium, the seven bracelets on each arm now bunched together at her elbows. Her bodyguards moved closer, but stayed out of sight behind the platform. All of them were well over the average seven-foot height of Alajian men, and all were conspicuously well-muscled compared to the slender norm. But no escort wedge, however large, had ever made her feel especially protected. She'd always believed that her own senses and abilities were her best source of security, and this situation was no exception.

On a world of physically imposing people, Zeila was shorter and more slight than most, yet she carried herself with regal pride. She had the pronounced facial structure common to her race, the prominent cheekbones and brow, the short muzzle formed by a delicate nose blending into the outward curve of the upper lip. Beyond that, her appearance was striking, with features like finely chiseled sculpture and a complexion ruddy and youthful despite her middle age. Her hair was clipped into a spiked style, shining black with flaming auburn highlights, matching the onyx and ruby stones studding her suede headband. Yet the feature she was best known for was a scar incised along the point of her chin, most visible when she smiled.

She was not smiling now.

As if by silent signal, the crowd moved forward, not with a mob's panic but with the inevitability of a tide. Barricades marking a buffer zone around the speakers' stand crushed under their feet. Uniformed troops ringing the plaza closed ranks and linked into a determined chain.

And that was the last Zeila saw as her own security squad hustled her down the back steps, through the building behind, into her idling flyer, and out of Swatarra.

The flight back to the capital compound in Port Arabok took an hour. Zeila's aides left her alone in her private compartment, and she used the time to review the near-disaster back in Swatarra. She was most frustrated by the fact that she'd not had the chance to say a single word. Even an argument in the street would have been welcome, compared to a hasty retreat and a silent departure.

Arriving at the Capital Forum, Zeila was met by her chief of intelligence and security. Lef was a big pale man, his broad shoulders stooped by a fatigue that seemed bone-deep. In contrast to Zeila's electric presence, he seemed cast in cool soft clay, his face lined deeply beyond his years. His hair was cropped close, mostly gray with some leftover streaks of its former cinnamon color. The jeweled headband and brightly colored clothing typical of Alajians of both genders looked distinctly out of place on him, but custom was custom.

He greeted his leader with just two words. "It's dead."

Her lips thinned as she recalled an undeniable truth uttered by someone wiser than she: The most perilous moment for a bad government comes when it tries to mend its ways.

A bad day had just grown worse. Much worse...

"You're sure it's dead," said Retthew, Prefex of the Council of State on the planet Etolos. With short, quick movements, he nervously nibbled brown seeds picked one after another from a plain ceramic dish on his desk.

His security adviser, Ozemmik, replied without hesitation. "Absolutely."

"When did this report come in?"

"Just now," said Ozemmik. "It happened two days ago. And we also know that Zeila's government on Alaj is covering up the news. They're afraid of even more widespread violence if their people find out."

Retthew pushed away from his rough-hewn desk and crossed the room to the bay window, his soft-soled moccasins whispering against the wood-plank floor. Even in private, he moved stiffly, like a man uncomfortable inside his own body. With uncharacteristic grace and tenderness, his fingers brushed along the half-dozen plants arranged in the window alcove, their leaves bowing toward the grow-lamps shining on them. Outside, it was twilight, and the plants knew instinctively where to turn.

Retthew wished his own instincts were as sure. As executive of the ruling Council of State, he knew he was privy to the most comprehensive information Ozemmik could gather, and he doubted he could ever find a security adviser as dedicated to the job. Yet the information Retthew received could not make his decisions for him and he'd often envied Ozemmik's decisiveness.

They'd known each other since their middle-school days, and even as youngsters Retthew had admired his friend's ability to focus his formidable intelligence with uncommon discipline. Retthew was just as bright, but known as the class scatterbrain -- as Mik would often remind him.

Mik. Ozemmik had always loathed that diminutive. Some of their school chums had tried using the nickname just to provoke Ozemmik, but his response gave them no satisfaction. With icy composure, he'd simply remind them of his full name, and thereafter ignore anyone who failed to use it. Retthew never tested his friend's resolution on that or any other matter. From the day they'd met as children, both knew who was stronger.

But now, as adults, it was Retthew who was the leader and Ozemmik the servant. In name, at least.

"The plants are doing pretty well, don't you think?" Retthew said, trying to lose himself in the soothing music he always had playing in the background. "Considering they haven't seen natural sunlight stronger than that," he nodded out toward the dusky sky, "in four months. Don't you think?"

Ozemmik made no comment, refusing to indulge his leader's penchant for avoiding the issue at hand.

Retthew sighed. "Your sources--"

"The best."

"So." Retthew shoved his hands into the deep pockets of his pants, and shambled back to his desk. "It's hard to imagine there's not a single nefittifi left on Alaj, that the handful here on Etolos are the last ones anywhere."

"The Alajians are destroying their whole planet. What do they care if a sacred symbol goes extinct?"

"I think they care, Ozemmik. They just don't know how to change."

"They knew how to banish our people," said the security adviser, a pious edge spiking his voice. "If we'd been there for the past three hundred years, we could have saved the nefittifi. Could've saved a lot of life forms."

"Maybe. But we weren't, and we didn't. And here we are, trying to save our own world." Retthew got up again, drawn back to the window. He'd spent too much of his time lately considering the ironies of fate. How odd that two peoples, sharing the same origins yet estranged for centuries, now faced crises of such magnitude that both populations could be doomed.

Though there'd been no direct contact, Etolos had pieced together a rather effective intelligence network over time. Retthew and his predecessors in the prefex's office were kept well-informed about life on their ancestral homeworld. More than likely, the same was true for Alajian rulers.

If a group of Alajians suddenly found themselves wandering about the Council Center outside Retthew's office, they'd probably find little of great surprise. Even before the Great Exodus from Alaj, the forebears of today's Etolosans had developed some distinct differences in style and custom to distance themselves from the Alajian mainstream, differences that had naturally widened through the centuries.

In contrast to smooth-faced Alajian males, for instance, Etolosan men generally still grew full beards, although Ozemmik was an exception, carrying his flair for individualism to the extreme of also shaving his scalp. And unlike their Alajian cousins, Etolosans shunned extravagant clothing and ornamentation, preferring garments of simple cut and subtle color. In place of ubiquitous Alajian jewelry, Etolosan men and women both wore woven headbands with small cylindrical pouches stitched over the right ear and religious symbols embroidered all around.

But these were just the outer trappings. What about inside? Retthew wondered. Maybe we've come together without even knowing it. Maybe the Alajians eventually learned the same lessons we learned while we still lived there. What if that were true and we died without knowing it? Tragedy on top of tragedy...

Ozemmik joined him at the window. "It's not our fault, what's happening out there."

"No. Volcanic eruptions are not our fault. And yet, there they were waiting to bury us in dust and darkness while we strolled along our self-styled path of righteousness," Retthew said with some bitterness.

"Cosmic injustice? Nobody ever said the right path included rewards, Rett. But we couldn't walk any other path even if we wanted to."

"Why not?" Retthew searched his friend's face for unknowable answers.

But Ozemmik always had an answer, one he believed in, no matter what the question. "Because we're afraid of what we'd become if we ignored the righteousness of what we've done, what we've built here."

"And what would we become?"

"Just like the Alajians, just like the people we hate the most."

"I don't hate them. Not after three centuries."

"I do," said Ozemmik simply. "And my polls tell me the Etolosan people will never forgive what was done to our ancestors, Spirit rest their souls."

"Polls. Sometimes I wish you wouldn't tell me what they say."

"You need to know."

Retthew returned to his chair, biting more of the brown seeds between his teeth. "Are you really afraid of becoming like them?"

"I'm not afraid of anything. But if I were, that would be my fear."

Retthew motioned to his adviser. "Sit down, my friend. Do you remember that motto you had posted over your dormitory bed?"

"Of course. 'Once called, always committed.' You know it's still on my wall."

"Yes. In your office. You've never stopped believing in that, have you?"

Ozemmik's brow made a fractional arch, as if the answer was self-evident. And to anyone who knew him as well as Retthew did, it was just that.

"I've always envied that about you," said Retthew, "the way you can choose a direction and never look back. I can't tell you how many times I've wished I could be like that."

"You shouldn't bother, Rett," Ozemmik said, wagging his chin. "I go through life trying my damndest to get the universe to agree with me. It's a burden I don't think you'd enjoy."

"Well... some of us get that calling later than others."

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

"I've been thinking about... about taking an extreme step."

Ozemmik snorted a laugh. "You? Without opinion polls?"

"Don't be so sarcastic with your prefex," Retthew admonished, only half kidding.

"Forgive me, Excellency," Ozemmik said with a friendly smirk. "And tell me what you're talking about. What calling?"

"I've always been an administrator. The job does not encourage great leaps of courage."

"And that's always suited you," Ozemmik said, not unkindly.

"True. But the times are different. And they're demanding something greater from me."

"I'm not sure I like hearing you talk this way."

"Then I doubt you'll like what I'm considering." Retthew took a deep breath to steady his nerves. "This may be the time to open up a dialogue with Alaj."

Ozemmik's face pinched in startlement. "What?"

"No one else on the Council knows about the last Alajian nefittifi's death, do they?"

"No. I came directly to you, as always."

"I'll inform them at today's meeting," said Retthew, avoiding his friend's probing stare by chewing another seed from the dish.

Ozemmik rose from his chair, leaning halfway across the desk. "Alaj is our sworn enemy--"

"An enemy who has something we need," Retthew replied in a soft-spoken voice. But now he forced himself to lock eyes with Ozemmik. If he couldn't stand up to opposition here, he'd never be able to do it in the full Council meeting.

"What do we need from them?" said Ozemmik dismissively.

"A place to live, to continue our work. The fourth planet in the Alajian system. They've never settled it."

Ozemmik blinked, not quite believing what he'd heard. "Move our whole society? And even if we could, do you expect them to just give it to us?"

"There may be room for negotiation." Retthew tried to sound forceful, but knew he had failed. "We have things to offer Alaj."

Ozemmik stepped back, as if distancing himself from madness, his expression dark as a thundercloud. "There are powerful people who would oppose any dealings with Alaj. Perhaps with violence."

"Are you one of them?"

"I'm your security adviser. I serve you. Warning you when I think you're about to do something very foolish is part of my job. The Council will never agree to this."

"Our survival is at stake. I think Alaj's may be, as well." Retthew's voice wavered. Then he stiffened both his back and his resolve. "If I have to, I can invoke the emergency powers of this office and act on my own."

Ozemmik shook his head. "The Council will revoke your election."

"The hearings will take months," Retthew said evenly. "By then, the process I've already started will have gone too far to stop."

"Already started--?"

"A message to the United Federation of Planets, an official request for mediation. A Starfleet Starship is on its way..." He squinted as he tried to recall the ship's name. "The Enterprise."