Spock reserved comment on that count. "What about the beam itself? I understood you were working on increasing its effective range."
"Quite correct. In fact, we've made great strides in that regard. When we began, we were only able to effect specimens within a tenth of a kilometer radius. Now, we have a grouping as distant as three kilometers."
"And the actual affected area? Has that remained the same? Or have you been forced to narrow the beam?"
"The affected area has remained the same," Boudreau replied. "We've just found ways to step up the input-to-output ratio. I'll show you how we did it, if you like."
"I would like that very much," Spock told him.
"This way, then. I'm sure Dr. Wan would be glad to run through his calculations with you. After all, he was the brains behind the input-to-output enhancements."
Kirk confronted Farquhar across the briefing table. "I understand you have another objection to the way we're handling things," he said.
"To say the least," the ambassador replied.
He leaned forward, planting his elbows on the table and clamping his hands together, unconsciously making them into a club. The captain had no illusions as to whom the ambassador would like to beat over the head with it.
"I've been doing some thinking, with the help of the computer," Farquhar said. "And I've come to the conclusion that I'd be better off on another ship. Starbase Seven is only a day's journey from here—"
"And the Hood is there for shore leave. Mr. Scott filled me in on that part."
"Good. Then you know there's no reason for not complying with my wishes. You could drop me off and be back before Dr. McCoy can finish his work here. And since the Hood is presently uncommitted, it can take me directly to Alpha Maluria Seven."
Kirk shrugged. "That wouldn't be a bad idea, providing it was only shore leave the Hood was in for. The fact of the matter is, there was a virus running rampant among the crew—a rather serious virus, though I understand the medical authorities have a handle on it now. But so as to avoid panicking the population of the starbase, the Hood's visit was officially listed as 'shore leave,' and not something closer to the truth."
The ambassador looked at him. "You have proof of this?"
"Of course not. It was communicated to me on a confidential basis. And if you'd come to me even a couple of days ago, during the crisis, I couldn't have said anything about it."
"Then the crisis is over?"
"Yes." The captain knew what Farquhar's next question would be. "But don't expect the Hood to just take off as if nothing happened. Its people are going to need some time to recuperate." He smiled. "Ambassador, if Starfleet had an uncommitted ship available, don't you think you would have been on it? The reason you're on the Enterprise is that every ship in the fleet has been deployed for one reason or another."
Farquhar smiled back, but in a sour-grapes sort of way. "You'd better be telling the truth about the Hood, my friend. I don't like to be misled."
Easy, Jim. Better men than he have tried to provoke you and failed.
"I have no reason to tell you anything but the truth," Kirk returned, his voice so calm and even it surprised him. He stood. "And now, if there's nothing else I can help you with, I'm headed back to the colony."
The ambassador scowled. But he had nothing else in his arsenal except a parting shot. "Take your time," he sniped.
Seeing no need to dignify the remark with an answer, the captain walked past Farquhar and exited the briefing room.
Chapter Five
"MORE CHONDRIKOS, DAVID?"
Dr. Medford extended a plate of the stuff in his direction. It smelled terrible—not at all like the fragrant, alien fir trees from which it had been harvested.
The boy looked down at his plate, where the only evidence of the baked chondrikos casserole was an oily film and a few yellowish fibers, and regarded Dr. Medford anew. "No thank you, sir. I think I've had about all I can handle."
The big man's eyes narrowed beneath his large brows and his even larger mustache. The overhead lighting was reflected in his bald spot.
He looked from David to his daughter and back to David again. "Does that mean you liked it and you can't eat any more? Or that you hated it and you don't want to eat any more?"
David shifted in his seat, not sure how to respond. His mother had always told him to tell the truth, but these circumstances seemed to call for something else. He pretended that a piece of chondrikos had caught in his throat and coughed into his cupped hand to clear it.
Finally, Medford responded for him. "He hated it, Daddy. I told you he would hate it." She smiled and leaned closer to David. "Don't worry. My mom can't stand the stuff either. That's why Daddy only makes it when she's working late."
Dr. Medford grunted. "Let the boy speak for himself, Keena." He rested his elbows on the table and regarded their guest. "Now tell me, David. Did you like it or didn't you?"
"It's all right," Medford told him, putting her hand on his arm. "You can tell him; he won't get mad."
David swallowed. "Actually," he began, meeting Dr. Medford's gaze, "I, uh … didn't like it."
For a long moment, Medford's father just sat there, staring. David wondered if his friend had miscalculated and he was about to get kicked out of their dome for insulting the cook.
Then, ever so gradually, the man's expression changed. His brows lifted and the lower half of his face stretched out into a rueful grin.
"Well," Dr. Medford said, "at least you're honest." He sighed. "It was that bad, huh?"
David nodded, encouraged by the man's smile. "The worst."
Medford whooped, clapped a hand over her mouth, and laughed so hard she was almost in pain. Her father, after a second or two of indecision, began laughing too.
David chuckled, caught up in the spirit of it. "To tell you the truth, it was worse than the worst. It was—"
Dr. Medford held up a meaty hand. "Enough," he said, still grinning. "There's only so much criticism a man can take." He straightened. "That is, before he cancels dessert."
Suddenly, his daughter found the self-control to stop laughing. Her lips pressed together, she shot her friend a look of mock warning.
Taking the cue, the boy went deadpan. He looked at Dr. Medford, awaiting his verdict.
"That's better," the big man said. He got to his feet. "Now you two wait here, while I get the homemade ice cream." He looked at his daughter. "He won't hate that, will he?"
She shook her head. "No way."
Dr. Medford nodded approvingly. "Good. I'd hate to have him tell his mom we poisoned him or something." He winked at David. "Right?"
The boy nodded. "Right."
As her father crossed the dining area, Medford leaned toward David again. "I think he likes you. That's good, you know. Daddy doesn't like everybody."
David watched the man open the refrigeration unit and remove a container. "I like him, too. He's the kind of …"
… man I could look up to … The phrase flashed in and out of his mind.
"… he's kind of neat," he finished, ignoring his thought.
Medford nodded. "Yeah. I think so, too."
The boy looked at her. "It's nice of you to have me over," he said.
His friend shrugged. "When my mom was invited to the big dinner they're having for the starship people, and she found out your mom was invited too . . ." She shrugged again. "She didn't want you to have to eat alone."
Actually, the Pfeffers had asked David over to dinner as well, and so had the Chiltons. But he was glad his mom had accepted the Medfords' offer first. The Chiltons didn't have any children. And he much preferred Keena Medford's company to Will Pfeffer's.
Of course, David thought, if I had a father like everybody else, I could've had dinner with him. There wouldn't have been any need to find a place for me with someone else's family.
But it wasn't that way. And there was no use wishing otherwise.
"Your mom was very thoughtful," David said.
&nb
sp; "I had something to do with it, too," Medford told him. "I mean, you're my friend, right? Friends have to stick together."
The boy smiled. "That's right. We do, don't we?"
She lowered her voice a notch. "So have you seen any of them yet? The starship people, I mean?"
He shook his head. "Mom asked me to stay out of their hair, so that's what I'm doing."
"Aren't you curious about them? At least a little?"
David thought about it. "Not really. Mom says they're people like anybody else."
"Well, I'm curious. And I heard they're not jus there for medical checkups."
He looked at her. "What else would they come for?"
Medford glanced in her father's direction. Satisfied he wasn't listening in, she said: "I heard they're going to be grading us. You know, like Mr. Fredericks does in school. And if we don't get a good grade …"
She made a cutting movement with her hand across her throat.
"We're dead meat?" he asked.
"The colony's dead meat," she told him. "They'll cut off our funding faster than you can say Jack Robinson. At least, that's what my mom told my dad."
David pondered the information. Cut off their funding? After his mother had worked so hard to get it in the first place?
"That doesn't seem fair," he said.
The words were barely out of his mouth when Dr. Medford started back to the table with three bowls of frosty, yellow ice cream in his big hands. The spoons were inserted between his fingers.
"Here it is," he announced. "Just like I promised."
Bending over the table, he set David's ice cream down first, then his daughter's, and finally his own. It looked good—real good. So good, in fact, that the sight of it pushed David's concerns about the future of the colony to the back of his mind.
As Dr. Medford sat down, he said: "Dig in, everybody." And then, to David: "I hope you have a hankering for chondrikos. We were all out of chocolate."
The boy paused in mid-dig. Medford slapped her father on the forearm. "Daddy! Will you cut it out?"
The big man grinned at David. "Actually, it was the chondrikos we were out of. That's vanilla." He paused. "You do like vanilla, don't you?"
David chuckled. "I like vanilla fine, sir."
Dinner, which was held in the rec dome on a series of stripped-down Ping Pong tables, was modest but tasty. Kirk sat between Spock and McCoy, opposite Boudreau, Carol, and a colleague of theirs named Medford.
"I take it you were able to clear up your bureaucratic problem?" Doctor Medford asked.
The captain shrugged. "For the time being, yes. But you know how it is with bureaucratic problems. They have a way of coming back."
"In this case," McCoy explained, "we've got a crazy ambassador on our hands, who can't wait to get to Alpha Maluria Seven."
Kirk shot him a remonstrating glance, like a warning shot across his bow. No matter what the ship's officers thought of Farquhar, it wasn't good form to rail at the man behind his back.
Bones frowned at the suggestion of self-censorship but complied with his captain's wishes. "I guess I shouldn't tell tales out of school," he said.
"Alpha Maluria, eh?" The colony administrator shook his head. "Can't say I'm familiar with it. But then, I can barely tell you where Beta Canzandia is."
"If you wish," the Vulcan said, "I can show you its location on a starmap."
Boudreau smiled. "That won't be necessary, Mr. Spock. Even if I knew, the information would be meaningless to me. I'm afraid astronomy is not my strong point."
McCoy grunted. "It's all right, I'm the same way. If the captain relied on me to navigate, the Enterprise would be circling the Klingon homeworld right about now." He stood. "On the other hand, I know my way around a buffet table just fine. Anyone care to join me?"
Carol shook her head. "Not I, Doctor. I've got enough here to last me for a while."
"Looks like you're on your own, Bones."
"Fair enough," said McCoy. "If I'm gone too long, send out the dogs."
Chuckling, Medford watched the medical officer go. "A very amusing man, your Dr. McCoy." She turned to Spock. "He must keep you entertained all the time."
The Vulcan was as deadpan as ever. "That is one way of putting it," he remarked. "The doctor has a unique point of view."
The captain decided it might be a good idea to change the subject. Turning to Boudreau, he said: "Mr. Spock tells me your research is going quite well."
The colony administrator turned to Carol. "What do you think, Dr. Marcus?"
Medford smiled. "Actually, that's a constant bone of contention between them."
"A friendly bone of contention," Boudreau amended.
"But a bone of contention nonetheless," Carol amended further. She turned to Kirk. "It has to do with oxygen production. Our specimens simply don't perform in the field as well as they should."
Spock nodded. "Dr. Boudreau mentioned your dissatisfaction. I am curious to know more about it."
Carol shrugged. "It's pretty simple, really. Before we send our specimens out in the field, we observe them under controlled conditions in a little garden I've set up. And in the garden, their oxygen production is terrific. Then we plant them outside the colony and their production falls off." She frowned. "My current theory is that the G-Seven beam is altering the plant's DNA somehow, but I'm nowhere near proving it. So far, I haven't found any differences at all in the genetic material—not in the first generation or any other."
The Vulcan looked more than casually interested. "Fascinating," he commented. "May I see your notes?"
"Of course," Carol replied. There was a slight flaring of her nostrils, though, that told the captain that she was at least a little put off by the bluntness of Spock's request. Why? Because it implied that he could find the answer when she couldn't?
Kirk wondered if he was the only one who noticed her pique. After all, it had taken him a long time to be able to read Carol's little quirks, and they'd had something a lot more intimate than a professional relationship.
"Miss me?"
The captain and everyone else at the table looked up at McCoy as he rejoined them. His plate was once again heaped with selections from the simple buffet.
"You know," said Kirk, "these people are going to think we don't feed you on the ship, Doctor."
"Pshaw," McCoy replied. "Only a fool turns down home cooking." He leaned closer to the center of the group as he took his seat. "Though I have to admit, there was one dish there that must have gone bad a couple of weeks ago. Or at least, it smelled that way."
Medford looked at him. "Was it kind of yellow and oily looking?"
"That's the one," Bones confirmed. Suddenly he blanched. "Don't tell me you cooked it. I'll want to crawl under a rock."
The black woman shook her head. "No, I didn't cook it."
"That's a relief," said McCoy.
"My husband did."
The doctor's jaw dropped.
And Medford began laughing out loud. When she finally got control of herself, she added: "It's all right. Everybody thinks it smells terrible. But he did the cooking tonight for—"
She exchanged a quick glance with Carol, which the captain missed the significance of.
"—for my daughter, and he insisted I bring some of the stuff along to the buffet. He thinks people like it."
Kirk smiled. So did Boudreau and Carol. Finally, Bones smiled too. Only Spock remained expressionless, as usual.
"Well then," said McCoy, "I'm glad I didn't offend anyone."
"Just my husband," Medford replied. "But believe me, no one's going to tell him. No one dares."
The whole table chuckled—again, with the exception of Spock. Kirk looked at Carol; he'd always loved her smile, and now he remembered why.
He wished she smiled more often these days. But then, maybe she did, when she didn't have to contend with the presence of an old lover.
Suddenly she turned and saw him staring at her. If she was surprised, she didn't show it
. She simply returned the look.
And then surprised him. "If you want to cash in on that rain check, Captain, you'd better do it soon. It gets pretty cold here after dark."
Kirk nodded. "In that case, we can go as soon as you're finished eating."
She shrugged. "I'm finished now."
Vheled was in his quarters, sharpening his favorite knife with a honing stone, when he heard the rap on his door. Rising, he replaced the dark, abraded stone on the low shelf where he usually kept it.
Next, he tucked the knife into the space between his belt and the small of his back. Finally, feeling prepared for anything out of the ordinary, he barked, "Enter."
At his command, the heavy door to his quarters slid aside, revealing the lean, proud form of his gunnery officer. Inclining his head by way of a greeting, the young man took two steps into the cabin; the door closed behind him.
No threat here, Vheled mused. Removing the knife from its hiding place, he flipped it point first into the throwing board on his wall. It hit with a soft thud and remained fixed among the board's many scars.
The young officer smiled approvingly. "You are skilled with the dagger," he noted. "I trust that is not your only weapon, however."
It was. If a warrior could not rely on his own senses, of what use were weapons?
"Of course not," Vheled lied. He indicated a seat across the room, near the tapestry that had been in his family for twelve generations. The man made his way there and sat down, but not before the captain did. For a moment, they sat in silence.
"Why have you come?" the captain asked finally.
"There is to be an assassination," the younger man told him.
Vheled's eyes narrowed. He was interested, but he wouldn't let on how interested. It was never a good idea to let a warrior think he had an advantage over his captain. "Are you my security officer," he asked, "that you should warn me of such things?"
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