HEIR OF A KLINGON by Anthony Durrant As I was sitting at a table in the lounge of the passenger ship Mallory, the computer voice said that there was a message for me from a Klingon shuttle off the port bow. "On screen," I said. "I'd like to see who this is from." On glancing out the window I saw a Klingon shuttle floating nearby, matching the course of the Mallory with graceful ease. As I sipped my drink, the screen on the table lit up, and I saw a face appear - the face of Ti'Gar, Head of House Tak'Ender'Vore, an old enemy of mine. I had stopped many of Ti'Gar's schemes before, using - being pale and sickly - only my wits. The last time we'd met, Ti'Gar was a robust and powerful warrior. Now he was pale and very thin; but I could still see a little of the old Ti'Gar in the dying old man on the screen. "As you can see, I have contracted Shan'kar,"1 he said. "My doctors give me only a few more months to live, my honoured foe. When I die, everything I have - my house, my furniture, my titles, and my treasure will be yours, for I have left them to you in my will. And I plan to die now - as soon as I detonate the bomb I have placed in this shuttle." With that, he touched his finger to his eye and winked. "Don't, Ti'Gar!" I cried. "It's not honourable - you'll go to Sto'Vo'Kor!" "In another few months, I would be a vegetable," Ti'Gar snapped. "Is that an honourable way for a warrior to die? No, Jacob. I want to die now, while I can still walk." With that he pressed the detonator in the main jewel on his breastplate. Seconds later, an explosion shook the Mallory. A few minutes later, I looked outside and saw the fireball. I pain- fully wrenched myself to my feet, my weak lungs gasping for air, and walked to my cabin, where I threw myself on the bed and painfully cried myself to sleep. When I woke up the next morning I heaved myself out of bed, hearing the loud breathing that was my lifelong companion, and star- ted to get my luggage together. As I pulled out a suitcase, my door chimes sounded. "Come in," I said, walking painfully across the room to the door. "Come in, please." My door slid open, and a female Klingon came into the cabin. "I am K'Adenza," she told me. "Are you Jacob Norton?" "I am," I said softly. "Is this about Ti'Gar?" "Yes. I am to read you his will," she said. "He wrote it shortly before he . . . died." She pulled out a padd and read its contents. "'I, Ti'Gar of House Tak'Ender'Vor, hereby declare this to be my last will and testament. Everything I own - my titles, my House, my furniture, and my rank - shall pass henceforth to my honoured enemy, Jacob Norton, forever. It was an honour to be her enemy.'" "Thank you for coming," I said softly. "It was an honour to be his enemy." "A question, before I go," K'Adenza asked. "Why would someone name a girl Jacob?" "My father was the first Jacob," I said. "He wanted to have a son, but when Mother died giving birth to me, he was so upset that he gave me his name anyway. My father was a scientist; when his job was phased out, he joined Starfleet and was killed in a Borg attack." I shook her hand; she left the cabin. When the Mallory landed on Earth, I took a shuttle- craft to Quo'Nos, the Klingon homeworld. K'Adenza met me at the landing site as I tore myself painfully from my seat and left the shuttlecraft. She brought me to a transport ship and helped to bring my bags inside. Soon we were on the way to House Tak'Ender'Vor and during the journey a biocomp designed by K'Adenza was implanted on my brainstem that contained basic Klingon, as well as a database of Klingon customs. When the shuttle landed, I wrenched myself painfully from the seat and stood in front of the black ebony doors of Ti'Gar's house. A big stately house, it was as black as the night sky. Opening the doors, I walked painfully inside. Dressed in Klingon clothes, I stood in front of Ti'Gar's grandfather Kha'Dan, the khatag- lir - the executor of his grandson's will - and held out my left hand toward him. Taking a dagger from his belt, he handed it to me, and I slashed a cut in my palm. I handed it back to him, and he slashed open his own palm. Taking my bleeding hand in his bleeding hand, he clasped it tightly, and had it bound in a cloth. When he lifted the cloth and removed his hand, I saw that Kha'Dan had a long purple scar on his palm, and I saw an identical scar on my own palm. "Come to me, girl," he said, "and give your old grandfather a hug." I did as he asked, though my joints ached and my heart pounded painfully in my ribs. "You are now the Head of House Tak'Ender'Vor," Kha'Dan said. "Congratulations." After the ceremony, I went to Ti'Gar's bedroom to go to sleep for the night. Just before I undressed, I was thrown violently forward and landed on my face on the bed. Looking in the an- cient mirror by the bed, I saw a big Klingon warrior standing behind me. "I am Ki'Gar, nephew of Ti'Gar," he snapped, "rightful head of House Tak'Ender'Vor. I doubt very much that a mere human can run a Klingon household. You are frail and ill, so I will simply wait until you die - which should not be very long. Then, I ascend to my rightful position as head of House Tak'Ender'Vor. Beware, girl - I will return!" With that, Ki'Gar left me lying on the bed weeping uncontrollably. I crawled underneath the sumptuous covers of the ancient Klingon bed, cried myself to sleep, and dreamed I was stan- ding in a room with a huge bowl containing a litter of kittens. Ignoring the black, white and grey kittens, I reached into the bowl, and pulled out an apricot kitten. As I held him in my arms, stro- king him tenderly, Emperor Kahless - the first Klingon ruler - appeared before me. "Greetings, Jacob Norton," he said. "I sensed your distress and came here to help. Years ago I was so frail I could not leave my own bed. One day, a wandering sage taught me the exer- cises that made me the strong warrior and mighty Emperor I finally became. Now I impart these exercises to you, for your sadness has touched me deeply. When you wake, they will be on your database, and you will be able to use them to build up your strength." "Thank you, mighty Kahless," I told him. "I'll never forget what you've done for me." "Farewell, Jacob Norton!" Kahless cried. "Think of me now and then." "I will!" I cried. A few minutes later, I woke up and saw the rise of Quo'Nos's sun. Just as Kahless had said, the exercises were now in my database. I pulled myself painful- ly out of bed, walked to the window, and began putting myself through Khaless's exercises as the sun rose over the top of my window. At first, I was in excruciating pain, but slowly it faded from my joints, until I found myself able to move without pain for the first time I could remember. As I breathed deeply for the first time without pain, I laughed in delight. "Now," I thought, "to pay a visit to Ti'Gar's vault, where he kept all his treasures!" Walking downstairs, I entered Ti'Gar's office, and opened a secret door by pushing a but- ton on his desk, then went down a secret staircase into the vault. To my amazement, the vault of Ti'Gar was chock full of treasure from floor to ceiling! I stared in amazement at the goblets, val- uable books, scrolls, precious stones, chalices and coins that filled the room. Laughing with joy, I rushed to a large stack of bonds and began throwing them up in the air. "Ha, ha! How beautiful," I thought, "and it's all mine! This special vault Ti'Gar had built will keep my fortune safe! Ha, ha, ha!" I walked upstairs as though I was floating on a cloud, feeling happy and full of life. On my way out of the secret door, I was met by Chancellor Martok's Chat'Ranj - his tithe collector, a tall white-haired Klingon in a grand purple outfit - who had been waiting for me. "As the new leader of Ti'Gar's house," he explained, "you must pay a tithe equal to a third of the value of the estate you have inherited from him, or face dishonour by the Council." "The money's in Ti'Gar's vault," I told him, "so I'll just nip down and get it for you." I went back down into the vault, picked up a small stack of the same bonds, then brought it up to the delighted Chat'Ranj. He took them with a smile on his long bony face. "Ah, me!" he said as he walked out of the office. "I am a poor man. Farewell!" "Farewell!" I shouted, waving goodbye. Sitting down at the desk, I activated the console and called up a list of the entities whom Ti'Gar owed debts, hoping that I could pay them back before Ki'Gar did something rash. "Computer," I asked, "sort these people out by race." "Done," the computer told me. "Data sorted and relisted." There were shelves of books in the office; one was called Poems by Fru'Ginn. I took it, and read the poems for quite some time. There was a poem at the end of the book, written in the old form of Klingon but in someone else's neat handwriting. In English, the poem read: "Seven Klingon princes went against Gra'Daw, Seven Klingon princes went into battle together; Six of the princes fell in battle, yet one lived on: He was the prince with the jutting jaw! "He was the last of the Seven against Gra'Daw, He was the strongest of the seven mighty princes. One man gave the death blow to mighty Gra'Daw: He was the prince with the jutting jaw! "The weapon the prince used to destroy Gra'Daw was a Bat'Leh made from the shoulder of a sharl; He honed the blade to the finest, deadliest keen: He was the prince with the jutting jaw! "All hail the survivor of the Seven against Gra'Daw! All hail the mighty prince who slew mad Gra'Daw! He has earned the eternal praise of his Ancestors: The mighty prince with the jutting jaw!" "That can't have been written by Fru'Ginn," I thought, "for the handwriting's different. I think, though, that it is a very entertaining poem and that I shall read it from time to time." Tucking the book away, I went into the Hall of Masks, where life masks of Ti'Gar's dead ancestors looked down on me from the wall. One of the death masks was of a tall Klingon with a long bony face and a prominent lower jaw who didn't look like Ti'Gar's other ancestors. "I wonder who that was?" I thought. "Could it be a mask of Fru'Ginn himself?" I didn't know. What I did know was that I'd have to pay Ti'Gar's debts or be shunned by the Council, so I ordered each and every one of the people Ti'Gar was in debt to to come and get what his estate owed them. Soon a number of people turned up at the door of my house and I let them in one by one and paid them with money from the vault downstairs. Fortunately, many of them, as indicated by the computer records, turned out to be either human or Klingon. As a large Klingon warrior walked away happily with enough Klingon money to pay his debts, a Ferengi in a blue suit walked up to me and sat down in the client's chair. I asked him: "You, I take it, are Cym'Ling?" "That's me, Toots!" the Ferengi exclaimed. "Now, hand me the semoleons." "The what?" "The lucre!" "What?" "The money Ti'Gar owed me!" "So you thought you'd get me to give you money, did you?" I asked. "Well, I have a few friends in Starfleet Security, and before I called everyone here to pay Ti'Gar's debts, I had them run a check on you. Cym'Ling, you're nothing but a swindler. Tell me, how did Ti'Gar come to owe you money? Did you run into him and decide to pull a swindle on the swindler?" "No!" Cym'Ling shouted. "It was nothing like that. I sold him the rights to an Orion ore processor, and he promised me a hundred Klingon gold coins in return but never paid me!" "In that case, Cym'Ling," I said, "you may consider yourself under arrest." I pressed a red button graphic on the top of the desk and as the door slid open, a pair of sturdy Starfleet Security officers walked into the room and grabbed him by the arms, lifting him up like a rag doll although he kicked and struggled in their grasp. "Let me go!" Cym'Ling cried. "Let me go!" "These people have come to take you to Starbase 12 for trial, Cym'Ling," I said, "and it seems you came in here and convicted yourself of fraud. Sorry, but you're going to jail." I smiled as the two officers took the struggling Ferengi out through the door and watched as it slid shut behind them. Standing up, I did my exercises for about an hour, working each and every muscle until I was exhausted. I liked the way I was starting to fill out, but as I slumped in- to the chair in which Ti'Gar himself had once sat - for his father had refused the title to become a priest - there was a beep on the communicator built into the desk. "Klangit filti'ir!"2 I shouted. At that instant, a face appeared on the screen - the long bony face of the Chat'Ranj. Now he had an angry scowl on his face and his message was very terse. "Those bonds you gave me were fake. Give me the tithe or face disgrace before the High Council of Quo'nos, Lady Jacob!3 You'll rue the day you crossed paths with a Chat'Ranj." "My Lord," I exclaimed, "I had no idea!" "You have one standard week," he told me, "to pay the tithe. End transmission!" "Damn!" I thought, slumping back in my chair. "Now I know what Ti'Gar's plan was. I should have suspected trickery when Ti'Gar left me his fortune. He hated me and this was his way of getting back at me from beyond the grave. Ti'Gar wanted to expose me to vast wealth and then make me a laughingstock in front of the High Council by making it look like I was not able to pay the tithe on my inheritance - or worse, force me to turn to crime to pay the tithe - and become a criminal just like Ti'Gar himself. I'm not rich at all - Ti'Gar was out of money!" Looking more closely at Ti'Gar's desk, I saw a tiny knot in the wood at the back. When I pressed the middle of the knot, a secret drawer popped open and I looked in the drawer and saw a series of letters in the form of padd disks. Slipping one of the disks into my trusty old padd so that I could play it, I turned on the padd and heard a woman's voice saying: "My dearest Ti'Gar, it's so good to hear from you again! These people, the Cymbyrians, have built a civilization based on books left behind by the captain of the USS Yeltzin. Looking around me I see buildings identical to those built by the ancient Egyptians many centuries ago on Earth, and these people are even ruled by a Pharoah. By bringing together the heads of the noble households of Cymbyria, and forming a joint government, we hope to minimize the damage that has been brought about as a result of the captain's visit to the planet - but it is hard work and we have made very little progress so far. I'll see you when my ship next comes to Quo'nos, "Love, Captain Betty Martin." "Ti'Gar - a Klingon warrior - in love with an Earthwoman?" I thought. "I'd never have thought it! And a starship captain to boot! They must have had a lot of fun together." Smiling, I stood up and walked into the Hall of Masks in order to think. There I again saw the death mask with the jutting jaw. Suddenly, I remembered the poem I'd found in the old Book of Fru'Ginn, the shoddy poem someone had added at the back of the book. "Of course!" I cried " 'The prince with the jutting jaw!'" Rushing over to the deathmask, I pulled it from the wall and examined it more carefully; the face was long and bony and the man had indeed had a "jutting jaw." My guess was that upon learning of his impending death, Ti'Gar had written the poem in order to draw my attention right to the death mask. Turning the mask upside down, I saw something inside it - a key made of the same material as Ti'Gar's desk. Now all I had to do was find the keyhole that fit the key. "And I'll probably find that keyhole in Ti'Gar's old room!" I cried. Rushing upstairs to my room - the very room that Ti'Gar had used all his life - I ran over to the black box on the table beside my bed. Inserting the keyhole, I unlocked the box and threw open the lid. Inside were more voice recordings from Captain Martin and a short rod ornately in- scribed with the faces of Klingon deities that resembled a miniature chalice. When I examined it I found that the rod had an inscription on the top that was a name in Klingonaase. I played all of the recordings and found that each of them was along the same lines as the first, the one hidden in Ti'Gar's desk, describing a situation and professing Captain Martin's love for Ti'Gar. To my amazement (and amusement) there was also a recipe for a Kingon dish, Sheliak Stew, made out of a crablike creature called the Sheliak that lived in the oceans of Quo'Nos. Smiling, I thought back to the day Ti'Gar had committed suicide as I began to do my exercises again while thinking about my problem, and as I finished them I suddenly remembered what he had done before deto- nating the bomb that had ended his life. He'd tapped his eye and winked at me . . . "Of course!" I cried. "Now it all becomes clear! Ti'Gar was using the messages and the recipe to decoy me away from the real location of his fortune - it's right in the palm of my hand! He composed the letters and recipe himself, using a phony voice, to prevent me from realizing this rod is ancient and probably very valuable. He gave me a clue when he tapped his eye and winked at me before pressing the trigger for the bomb he used to commit suicide, and I almost missed it! He was trying to remind me of an old English expression no longer in use that was a synonym for nonsense in the old days that describes the letters perfectly - they're 'all my eye and Betty Martin!' Betty's short for Elizabeth - as in Elizabeth Martin, Ti'Gar's phony lover." I hurried down to old Kha'Dan and showed the old Klingon the rod. "Do you realize what this is?" he asked in amazement as he stared at the rod. "No," I said, "but could you please tell me what it is?" "It is the Seal of Mar'Low, the only survivor of the Seven Against Gra'Daw, and it is one of the most priceless items known to exist here in the Klingon Empire. You should donate this to the Museum of Kahless before Ki'Gar tries to steal it away from you." "Of course!" I cried, remembering the poem. " 'Seven Klingon princes went up against Gra'daw; six were killed and only one returned.' Ti'Gar was trying to tell me what he had!" "Congratulations, my lady!" Martok said. "By donating the Seal of Mar'Low to the Mu- seum, you have won great respect from the Klingon High Council. How did old Ti'Gar come to be in possession of such a priceless item, and where could he have obtained the Seal?" I had just come in from a brisk run around the courtyard of my estate when the message from the Chancellor had arrived. I had answered it and found Martok wanted to thank me. "He probably bought it from a descendant of the man who had originally stolen the Seal, and exchanged his entire fortune for the ultra-valuable artifact," I said, "then was very careful to 'cover his tracks,' as they say in the detective stories. When he learned he was dying, Ti'Gar de- cided to embarrass me before your council, so he wrote the Elizabeth Martin letters, the poem, and the recipe, then wrote out a will disinheriting Ki'Gar and leaving the estate to me. He hoped I would be unable to find his fortune before the next High Council meeting, and would therefore be banished in debt and in disgrace when it was discovered that the treasure Ti'Gar had left for me to find in his vault was phony. Unfortunately, Ti'Gar rather underestimated me." "He certainly did!" Martok said with a smile. "Your debt to the Chon'Kar is now erased and the house of Tak'Ender'Vor is hereby now restored to the Council's favour. Strip away the name of Jacob, for it does not become a warrior such as yourself. Your name is now Ekat'Erina, a name which means 'Glorious Lady' in Klingonaase. Thank you for your wonderful gift." "You're welcome!" I said. "Thank you for your kindness and for my new name." "You're welcome with all my heart, my lady!" Martok cried. "End transmission." With that, the screen went dead. Sitting back in the chair, I smiled. A few minutes later, I stood up and walked into the Room of Masks, where I found Ki'Gar holding the mask with the jutting jaw and feeling around inside it with one hand. When he saw me, he pulled a dagger and pointed it right at my heart with a howl of disgusted rage. "Looking for this?" I asked, opening my hand and showing him the key. "The key!" he cried. "Hand it over!" I grabbed a bat'leh hanging on the wall the death masks were facing. "You'll have to take it from my dead body!" I cried. He lunged forward and I lifted the bat'leh to my waist as the blade of his weapon hit the mark, almost shaking the bat'leh from my hands. Lashing out, I scarred Ki'Gar across the chest, then rammed headlong into the mighty warrior. I found that my exercises had so enlarged my once frail physique that I could go toe to toe with Ki'Gar easily. We locked bat'lehs again as the Klingon rose from the floor and attacked me once more. Enraged beyond reason, I knocked poor Ki'Gar down and he went reeling across the room into the back wall; now he was out. "Congratulations, Lady Ekat'Erina!" Kha'Dan said as he came into the room. "Congrat- ulations, Head of House Tak'Ender'Vor. You have won your gambit with the dead Ti'Gar." "Thank you, Kha'Dan!" I said. "I hope I have proved worthy of that name." THE END 1 A degenerative disease always fatal to Klingons. The name means "The Wasting."2