Margeret Bonanno - Probe

There was a smattering of laughter at her dryness.

"Now again, please." She raised the baton as the musicians readied their instruments. "From the top, and-"

"Isn't she delightful?" someone stage-whispered at Uhura's elbow.

Uhura recognized the small, plump figure with the fringe of silver hair as Maestra Carmen Espinoza, the principal conductor herself, from the larger-than-life holos gracing the theater lobby. She was winded, as if she had run the entire length of the plaza.

"You must be Commander Uhura. But you're early! I was told not to expect you until this afternoon," she chided Uhura with the easy familiarity of someone aware of her own talents and her place in the scheme of things. "Don't you know artists are not morning people?"

She did not wait for an answer. "Come. Even I don't dare interrupt one of Audrea's rehearsals; I doubt anything short of the Second Coming could. I'm afraid you'll have to wait in my office, though I can at least offer you a cup of tea."

Uhura accepted the invitation-the delay-with some relief and followed the older woman down a labyrinth of corridors, backstage past the scene shop redolent with wood shavings and paint thinner where a massive backdrop for this season's Otello was under construction, and into what was apparently the conductor's office.

"Please excuse the mess," Maestra Espinoza apologized, seeming to address the cello, which had somehow taken up residence in her chair and which she now relegated to a far corner, making room among a clutter of music stands so that Uhura could sit on the divan while she programmed the servitor for tea. "I suppose I must ask what you've come about, though I can guess. Starfleet recently tried to commandeer my entire orchestra, but I was not to be budged. Now, if I have correctly interpreted their latest cryptic message, you have been sent to draft my best rehearsal conductor for whatever secret reason. Before you attempt to take her from me, I must tell you what a treasure Audrea's been."

A small bell on the servitor intoned a perfect A, indicating that the tea was ready; Maestra Espinoza poured, never losing a beat in her monologue.

"As you doubtless know, she came to us under somewhat. . unusual circumstances, so I suppose it's only fitting she leave the same way." Espinoza smiled and returned the pot to the servitor. "You do know the story?"

"I'm afraid I don't," Uhura replied, more than willing

to listen. Like most, she knew the story of Kalis Three but little else, least of all how someone who was still one of the Federation's premier archaeologists had ended up here, conducting the New York Philharmonic. The media had been full of grossly sensationalized accounts of the year-long captivity of Dr. Benar and her archaeological team, of the "experiments" the Romulans had conducted on them all, of the brutal deaths of her colleagues, of her brother, and of her own final escape. Once she sought refuge on Vulcan, however, she had faded from public view. Her efforts to use Vulcan logic to rebuild her mind and her life were not as newsworthy — read "titillating"-as the events that had nearly destroyed them in the first place.

"Well then!" Espinoza settled back in her chair, unapologetically propping her stockinged feet up on the desk. "About a year ago-or was it two? No matterthe Philharmonic was in the process of planning a retrospective of the works of off-world composers-one performance to be devoted to each of six, as I recall. We had selected a most challenging Vulcan piece by Salet, which required an obsolete instrument-the tlakyrrand we were on the verge of substituting another instrument because, frankly, finding a virtuoso on the tlakyrr had us stumped. That is, until someone recommended we contact Smithsonian's xeno-archaeology department. They put us in touch with a specialist in ancient Vulcan musicology: Audrea Benar. Such talent, that one! In due course, I also learned that she had recently begun a private study of ancient Earth music, and particularly of conducting. I don't have to tell you how extraordinary a skill that has become even among humans in this push-button synthesized century. And Audrea's field of concentration, fortuitously enough, was Beethoven-no

surprise, as he is the one Earth composer Vulcans seem to find most simpatico. Someday I intend to find out why." She smiled. "Audrea's human, not Vulcan, of course-though after years of study there, she behaves so much like one of them I tend to forget."

Uhura nodded, smiling and wondering what Spock would have to say about such generalizations about Vulcan musical taste. His father's favorite composer, he had once confided, was not Beethoven but Mozart. Whether it had always been so, even before the crosscultural pollination of his marriage to Amanda, Spock had not said.

Maestra Espinoza sipped her tea. "But I'm squandering your precious time with my chatter, aren't I? It's the burden of the performing artist, you see. So accustomed to singing for our supper that we don't know when to shut up.

"But to be concise: Audrea has since become one of our rehearsal conductors-the best of the lot, I might add. The musicians respect her; there's a lot less carping and silliness when she's in charge. You know how musicians can get sometimes."

Espinoza paused as a faint chime, a precise octave above that of the servitor bell, sounded somewhere in the cluttered office. Some of the cheery brightness in her expression ebbed as she glanced in the direction of the door and stood up. "I believe that marks the end of the rehearsal, at least for the moment. If you would like to use my office to speak with Audrea. ."

Uhura, also on her feet, shook her head. "Thank you, but there's no need for that. This won't take long." Whichever way it goes, she added to herself.

But it did. Or so it began to seem to Uhura as soon as, on the now-deserted stage, Espinoza introduced her to

Dr. Benar and then quietly, discreetly absented herself. Seconds stretched into minutes as Uhura expressed her admiration, then her sympathy, delaying, always delaying.

Finally they were seated in folding chairs, facing each other beneath a worklight. Benar tilted her head, blueblack brows forming a crease in an otherwise smooth, unlined forehead. Espinoza had been right: it was difficult to remember Audrea's earthly origin. Her manner, dress, intonation, were distinctly Vulcan: cool, subdued, precise. Were it not for the ears, she could easily be mistaken for one, with her dark hair and tall, slender build. Her spine, poker straight, did not touch the backrest of her chair.

"I assume," Uhura said, her soft voice seeming uncomfortably loud on the bare stage, "that you're aware of what's been happening in the Romulan Empire the last few days."

"I know of the Praetor's death, Commander."

"And nothing else?"

"I have sought out nothing else."

Understandable, Uhura thought, but it didn't make her job any easier. Carefully, she explained about the Romulan Committee, the apparent upheaval and reform within the Empire, and finally the general outline of the invitation extended to the Federation.

"I can safely assume," Benar said when Uhura fell silent, "that I would not be the first to urge caution." She spoke in the same dry tone she had used with the cellists, but with a tinge of brittle tension that had been totally lacking earlier.

"Nor the last," Uhura agreed. "The thing is, the Federation can't afford not to at least appear to take the invitation and all the rest at face value. If it turns out the

Romulans are even halfway sincere and the Federation balks, chances for a meaningful peace could be lost for decades. Even if this so-called Committee only represents one faction, that one faction needs whatever bolstering we can give it."

"Startleet suspects a power struggle within the Empire?"