Saddleworth, England, Earth -- 52 years ago:
The ancient Emperor lay sprawled on the bed, wrinkled and feeble, staring up through rapidly-weakening eyes at his killers, the life quickly ebbing from him, but still desperate to speak.
His poisoners, his wife Agrippinilla, and her son and his stepson Nero, crowded him, Nero frowning in frustration. "What's he saying? Why isn't he dead yet? When do I get to be Emperor?"
"Quiet!" his mother scolded. "These could be the old fool's final words!"
The ancient Emperor, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus -- more colloquially known as just Claudius -- raised a hand and declared, "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud... hatch out."
Then he dropped his hand, and died.
Nero looked to his mother in confusion. "What does that mean? What?"
In the theatre audience, rapt to the intense death scene onstage, a twelve-year-old boy named Ian Trenagen wondered the same thing... though of course unlike Nero, he did not dare ask his own mother, who was sitting silently beside him. Being his mother's son, he was well-versed in Terran history, but she had not told him that they would be travelling into the village to attend the play, so he had no time to prepare, and she had confiscated his Pocket PADD so he couldn't cheat and access the Cynet to read up on it.
The village Theatre's production of
I, Claudius
had been lengthy, a marathon of plots and counterplots, of deception and ambition, of lust and murder. Much murder. But despite the proliferation of killings, Ian struggled to stay alert, knowing of what was to follow once they left the theatre.
*
The winter night was cold and wet as the audience poured out, opening umbrellas as they made their way out to the tram stops and the autotaxi depot. Mother and he had their own private autocar, parked nearby, and she led her son along the dark, winding main street of the village, flanked by closed storefronts.
Lieutenant Commander Margaret Thatcher Trenagen was a tall, imposing woman with a burr of snow-white hair and an aquiline nose, reminding Ian of Claudius' grandmother Livia as depicted in the play: always watching, always judging, always seeking weakness, advantage. She was a veteran instructor at Starfleet Academy in San Francisco, only occasionally returning home, these times rarely coinciding with Ian's returns from boarding school. She held her umbrella truculently, as if vexed that the British weather chose to pour down upon her and make her as drenched as the
hoi polloi
, and her cultured British accent was clear over the sound of the rain. "Identify the protagonist of the play."
Ian breathed in, clutching his own umbrella and keeping far enough from his mother's side to prevent water from running down onto him. In the few instances where he had met her cadets and colleagues, he had received the impression that among them, Margaret Trenagen was a cold and humourless taskmaster, always formal and challenging. It gave Ian some small comfort to know that she didn't treat him differently to anyone else. "Claudius is the apparent protagonist, Ma'am, being the main character, the narrator of the story. It is through his eyes that we see the Imperial Family through four Emperors, ending with himself. But Claudius remains passive for most of the play, surviving by playing the fool, and allowing family and friends to die.
Livia, in contrast, is more active. Though she lies, cheats, conspires against and murders anyone who is an obstacle to her ambitions, even to the point of poisoning her husband Augustus, she does what she does to keep in place a more stable and prosperous government than the Republic that Claudius desired."
Mother offered no visible reaction to his answer; she never did, unless the reaction was in the negative. "You believe a repressive Empire that offers stability and prosperity is preferable to a totally open and free representative government?"
Ian repressed a smile as he recognised a particular turn of phrase she used. "There is no such thing as a totally open and free representative government, where all its citizens are accountable to the same laws; as noted by Professor John Gill in his 2258 paper on the Democratic Paradox, it can only exist as an ideal. Every government requires an internal security framework unaccountable to the laws that control the rest of its population."
"The Federation has existed for over 150 years. It seems to have survived without such a framework."
He was relieved as they walked through a side alley and entered the carpark, where their autocar awaited to take them to their home outside of the village. "Professor Gill's paper also noted that such a framework does not have to be visible, or even officially acknowledged. In fact, the security framework would work better if the population was not aware of its existence, and so as not to be creative and careful about avoiding its attention. As Sir Francis Bacon wrote, '
Scientia Potentia Est: Knowledge is Power'
."
Mother walked them to the autocar and stood outside it, making no attempt to unlock the doors and let them climb inside and get out of the rain. "And what was the significance of the line, 'Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud, hatch out'?"
Ian looked up at her, seeing her face haloed in mist and rain and streetlamp light like some spectre. "Claudius had spent his life detailing a truthful account, as he saw it at least, of the activities of Livia, Augustus, Caligula and other members of his family who had underestimated him, saw him as a stumbling fool.
Agrippinilla and Nero burned the scrolls to hide the truth, but Claudius had prepared a back-up copy, hidden and destined to be found centuries later. Long after he and everyone else was dead, this information would be released, and he would have some revenge."
He looked up at her, smiling and waiting for her to acknowledge his response in the affirmative.
Instead, she countered with, "Hobbes."
He blinked. "Ma'am?"
Mother's expression tightened;
there
was the negative. "While '
Scientia Potentia Est'
is commonly attributed to Sir Francis Bacon, there is no known occurrence of this precise phrase in either his English or Latin writings. The exact phrase was written for the first time in the 1668 version of
Leviathan
by Thomas Hobbes. The error was obvious to anyone with intelligence."
She took his umbrella from him, shook the rain off it, folded it up and tucked it under her arm, before doing the same with her own, and then opening the autocar door -- just her own. "You disappoint me."
He stood there in disbelief, rain beating down unchecked onto his head. "But- Sir Francis Bacon said
something
very similar- I'm
certain
I read-"
"Excuses are for the weak, not for our family. And remove that distasteful hurt expression from your face. Learn to accept defeat with decorum."
He stiffened, and stopped wiping the rain from his face.
Rein it in, show nothing, nothing...
"Yes, Ma'am. I won't make that mistake again."
She climbed into the autocar. "The house security system will activate at midnight. I suggest you don't tarry, and use the time to reflect on your failings."
Ian watched as the autocar door slid closed, and it drove away and left him behind.
He flipped the collar of his coat up, before beginning to follow the familiar ten kilometre route home, hoping the rain would end soon.
*
USS
Surefoot-A
, Deck 3 Fore -- Arboretum -- Present Day:
Agony shot through Sakuth's skull like a phaser beam, sending her hurling backwards onto the floor. There was a high-pitched sound, cutting mercilessly into her very being, ripping away her discipline, her mental and emotional stability. Some sonic weapon employed by Hrelle-
No. he lay there, unconscious, as did his son. And there was no one else here except-
She winced and gritted her teeth as Sreen screamed again, the frequency affecting the discipline of the Vulcan agent.
Unprecedented levels of terror and rage swept through Sakuth, unchecked.
Even Hrelle's bastard cubs were a threat.
A threat to Sakuth.
A threat to her mission.
A threat to the Federation.
Take whatever steps are necessary,
Trenagen had ordered.
They
all
had to be eliminated.
Without hesitation, she drew the hidden miniature phaser from her jacket, rolled the power bar to a lethal setting, and fired it at the still-screaming cub in the chair.
The chair given to her by her grandmother, Fleet Captain Ma'Sala Shall.
The Head of the Mother's Claws, the Caitian Secret Service.
Within the chair, hidden sensors detected the energy beam, and erected a force field bubble, absorbing the energy to strengthen its own power, even as other mechanisms within began broadcasting a distress signal on all channels...
*
T'Varik entered the Bridge, with Jonas Ostrow in tow, as she moved up to the Security station. "Computer: locate Captain Sakuth."
C'Rash looked to Sasha at the centre seat, and then frowned at her partner as the computer replied, "
Captain Sakuth is in the Shuttlebay."
The Vulcan's expression furrowed. "Computer: run Priority Internal Sensor Scan, Authorisation T'Varik Alpha One, locate all traces of invidium."
"
Working."
"What's going on?" C'Rash queried.
"Jonas has confirmed that the Shiprot infestation was faked, most likely by Sakuth. I believe she has also faked her continued presence in the Shuttlebay."
"Then why are you scanning for-"
"Invidium is a substance employed by certain intelligence agencies as a biological container for cybernetic implants, because it's rare and not easily detected by starship internal sensors. Recently, however, I had Chief Grev make modifications to the sensor algorithms to locate-"
"
