The craft being held in the Enterprise’s shuttle bay was a small one, a personal yacht of Romulan design. Neither Montgomery Scott nor Captain Kirk were happy about the fact that there would be no homing device aboard, nor any Federation technology at all. Lieutenant MacEntyre had been quite insistent on this point, and, truth be told, there was really no mystery about it. It was just that Scott and Kirk didn’t like it.

They stood outside the small ship while it was loaded with the small number of necessities MacEntyre had had transported with her belongings – various Romulan artifacts, clothing and the personal effects such a traveling group might have. It had been arranged that the officers involved would be beamed straight from Sickbay, and Doctors Han and McCoy were just entering the shuttle bay when the familiar whine of the transport beams commenced. Security Chief Jeremy Paget entered behind them, as did – to no one’s surprise – Daffy Gollub.

“God in heav’n!” Scotty exclaimed as the officers – now Romulans – solidified. “Noel, ye’ look like th’ devil!”

“It still me in here, Scotty,” Del affirmed.

“Quickly, if you please, gentlemen,” MacEntyre said. “We have only a very small window of opportunity to slip into the Neutral Zone undetected.”

“The hopes and prayers of all of us go with you,” Jim said, stepping forward to shake each officer’s hand in turn.

“Spock, you’d better come back safe and sound or Ruthie’ll kill us all,” McCoy quipped. Both Jade and Jeremy scowled at him, and Jeremy cast an anxious glance at DelMonde. The engineer didn’t seem to notice, but from the way the Vulcan First Officer suddenly stiffened, Jeremy guessed N.C. had made a pithy, telepathic comment.

“Good luck, to all of you,” Jade’s soft voice said.

Daphne Gollub suddenly threw her arms around her boyfriend, growling a tight string of “you’d better come back you’d better not forget me can’t you get out of this ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod….”

Flushing, Chekov tried to disentangle himself from her vice grip. “It will be all right, Dafshka,” he murmured.

“Come on, Daphne,” Jade said, disengaging the chemist from the navigator and gently but firmly taking a hold of her arm. “I’ve got lots of Rigellian in my cabin.”

Daffy sniffled and stepped back, giving MacEntyre a glare that would’ve felled a lesser woman. “I’m counting the seconds, Pavel,” she said.

“As am I,” he returned with a gentle smile.

“Gentlemen?” MacEntyre gestured almost impatiently. Spock moved into the craft immediately, MacEntyre right behind him. Del took the time to wink at Jeremy before, he, too stepped into the yacht. Pavel was the last, and his gaze lingered, sweeping over the shuttle bay as if it was the last time he expected to see it. Then with a squaring of his shoulders, he, too, stepped into the small Romulan ship.

“Clear the hangar,” Scotty announced with calm professionalism as he moved toward the bay controls.

“Tell me they’re gonna be all right, Jim,” McCoy said as he and the captain exited the bay, behind Jade and a now openly weeping Daffy.

“I wish I could, Bones,” Jim responded. “I wish I could.”

“Y’all jus’ ‘bout not leave me no hair at all,” Noel DelMonde complained, running his fingers over the fine fuzz at the back of his neck.

Pelori MacEntyre frowned from her seat opposite him in the small Romulan personal shuttle. “If you had carefully reviewed the briefing materials, Mr. DelMonde, you would know that your haircut is perfectly suited to current tastes for males.”

Chekov turned around in the co-pilot’s seat to say, “It does make your neck cold, though.”

Both officers now sported almost identical styles, cut close high in back and on the sides to best feature well-shaped ears and necks. The hair on top was left relatively long, but much shorter than either man habitually wore his.

“This style is actually in line with Starfleet guidelines for personal grooming,” MacEntyre pointed out, leaving the implication that their previous haircuts were not unspoken, but obvious.

The navigator looked over his shoulder and grinned good-humoredly. “She has us there, Noel.”

Del had to smile. “Yeah, li’l’ Mac an’ the Romulans finally succeeded where the Academy fail.” In the very first of their rare joint ventures, the navigator and the engineer had worked together as cadets to research and secure the necessary religio-cultural exemptions from having to wear the regulation haircuts they both despised. “I t’ink it not missin’ your hair that makin’ you cold, T-Paul. No more clothes than you wearin’, you prob’ly got the gooseflesh all over.”

The navigator colored a little as he turned back to his panel. “The outfit is… functional.”

The Russian was dressed in a tight-fitting, long sleeved tunic in a rich, dark patterned fabric. The top was cropped off so that the bottom hem barely reached down to the top of his ribcage. His similarly snug pants left the top of his hipbone exposed. Both top and pants were opened in spots with decorative cutouts that bared more flesh or revealed it through a teasing layer of mesh.

“Functional,” the engineer conceded. “But kinda slutty.”

The navigator looked over his shoulder again and raised one delicately pointed eyebrow. “You should talk.”

The engineer scowled. He had been outfitted with dark blue tunic and pants – perfectly acceptable apart from the tightness of the fit and the large stylized diamond cut out that exposed the top of his chest from side to side and from the base of his throat to just below his breastbone. Classier, yes, but as the Russian had pointed out, still slutty.

Only Spock had been allowed to remain covered from neck to ankles in an elegant black suit. Even that was form-fitting.

“Watch flippin’ your head ‘roun’ like that,” DelMonde returned sourly. “If them big ears start to flappin’, we bound to have ourselves a wind tunnel.”

“Romulans like big ears,” Chekov replied cheerfully. “Don’t they, Miss MacEntyre?”

“Both shape and size are important,” the lieutenant confirmed, tersely. She had wished them all to assume their characters from the moment they stepped on to the shuttle. One member of the party had made that impossible.

“Dr. McCoy did a commendable job,” Spock said, lifting his eyes from the pilot’s readout panel only briefly. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Mr. Chekov.”

“Thank you, sir.” Although Chekov didn’t wish to antagonize MacEntyre, he was grateful to have a last space of time as himself.

“You got not’ing nice to say ‘bout my ears?” Del switched to Romulan. “Oh, my Bonded?”

Spock didn’t reply.

MacEntyre narrowed her grey eyes at the occupant of the seat across the aisle. “What is our ETA to the Neutral Zone, navigator?”

Chekov sighed and forced himself to reply pleasantly. “Only a few moments less than the last time you asked, Lieutenant.”

“But we’re very close?” MacEntyre pressed, still glaring at Del.

The navigator swallowed and refused to acknowledge the knot growing in his stomach. “Yes, Miss. Very close.”

The lieutenant paused and wished that she was going to be doing the personality swap on DelMonde instead.

“Oh, I bet you do,” the engineer said aloud.

“The memory switch will take ten to fifteen minutes to complete,” she informed the navigator as gently as possible. “And since we may be hailed as soon as we hit the Neutral Zone…”

The Russian took in a deep breath as he watched the last few available seconds tick off on his instrument panel. “Then we should start,” he said, preparing the controls to be taken over by the new co-pilot. “Are you sure you remember how to navigate, Noel?”

“Shut up, Jughead,” DelMonde said sourly as they switched seats.

“Well, gentlemen, Miss MacEntyre,” Chekov said, settling into the passenger’s row. “Good luck with our mission. I hope I prove to be of assistance.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chekov,” Spock acknowledged without turning from the helm. “I hope your experience does not prove too unpleasant.”

DelMonde turned and gave his old roommate an encouraging wink. “Be seein’ you, T-Paul.”

“I’m going to give you a mild sedative.” MacEntyre swiveled his chair to face her. She took a Romulan first aid kit out from under her seat and removed a hypo from it. “It won’t make you go to sleep, but may make you a little dizzy. When you wake up, I’m going to tell you that you’ve fainted. That should help you rationalize the initial disorientation.”

“Yes,” the navigator agreed, trying to regain conscious control over his racing pulse.

“This is our Rubicon, gentlemen,” MacEntyre announced as she knelt in front of the Russian and hissed the hypo against his neck. “When he wakes, there can be no more slips into Anglo. No more use of old names or nicknames. From this point on, we are Romulans. Any mistake could cost us our lives.” Telepathically she added, And cost our friend his sanity.

Del blew out a breath and uttered one last heart-felt, “Sheeeee-it” before falling silent.

“Close your eyes,” MacEntyre ordered the navigator, putting one hand against his throat and the other around his left wrist. “Count backwards from thirty.”

Chekov re-opened one eye. “In Romulan?”

The lieutenant gave him a sympathetic smile. “Whatever you’d like.”

“Thirty,” the navigator began in Russian, already feeling the drug in his veins taking hold. “Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven….”

“Lahs?” His mistress was tapping his face.

“Mistress?” he responded even before he could open his eyes. He was immediately relieved to see she didn’t look angry. What had happened? He was in a flying ship of some sort. His mistress was kneeling in front of where he was slumped in one of the passenger seats.

“You fainted,” she scolded lightly. “I think you’re getting spacesick.”

“Forgive me, Mistress,” he said, trying to straighten. His head felt like it was filled with water.

“Are you well enough to return to your place?” she asked, sitting back on her heels.

“Yes, Mistress, of course.” Despite his dizziness, he struggled to lift himself out of the passenger seat and stagger the two steps back to the plain, unpadded servant’s bench at the back of the cabin.

“Strap yourself in, Lahs,” Lady Ve’el reminded him as she resumed her own place. “I wouldn’t want you to fall onto the deck again.”

He obeyed as quickly as he could, mortified that he’d fainted. Praise all good spirits that he hadn’t vomited or otherwise made an even bigger spectacle of himself. “Please forgive me, Mistress,” he apologized once more when he was securely harnessed in place.

“Be quiet now, Lahs,” she ordered, sternly but kindly. “I know that flying frightens you, but I won’t stand for any more disturbances.”

“Yes, Mistress,” he replied softly, looking down at his knees. He felt once more thankful that he was lucky enough to find himself in the hands of such a lenient owner. In the past, he hadn’t been so fortunate. The handlers who raised him had been forced to be quite strict with him because of his deplorable tendencies towards rebelliousness. He had also been a trial to his first mistress. She found it necessary to continually come up with new punishments to curb his stubbornness and insolence.

He could no longer afford such lapses in his behavior. He was too old now to be sold as a house boy or bedslave. If vended, he was likely to become a common laborer, sweating in the sun or suffocating in a mine. He would sleep in dirt, eat refuse, and live under an overseer’s whip for the rest of his life.

His place with his mistress had become too precarious for mistakes. If he failed her as a serving man, he no longer had his status as bedslave to fall back on. The mistress had taken two new husbands. Despite the fact they were Warrior Bonded, they were both handsome and virile. If she called on them to pay the price for her patronage, either would make a far more attractive companion for her bed than a stupid, clumsy, non-gift who fainted in flying machines…

Feeling eyes upon him, Lahs looked up and found to his horror that the junior master was watching him. Master Joron looked very, very displeased. His wide, sensual mouth curled into an elegant frown.

“Yes, Master?” Lahs asked, biting his lip and hoping the second husband would not see fit to further shame him before his mistress.

“I’ve told Lahs to be quiet,” Lady Ve’el said, interrupting the junior master before he could speak. “Don’t cause him to disobey me… Unless you want to see him punished?”

The second husband shifted his gaze to Lady Ve’el, looking almost as if he were displeased with her.

“Joron,” the senior husband ordered. “Your attention is needed on the forward sensors.”

The second husband looked back and forth between them for a moment. “Forgive me, my Bonded,” he said, running the words together as if he didn’t really mean them, as he turned back to his controls.

Lahs closed his eyes and damned himself for a fool. How could he have been so thoughtless as to have spoken with out being first spoken to? He was fortunate that his mistress didn’t choose to push him out an airlock. The junior master must truly hate him to trick him into speaking like that… Since it was unthinkable to blame the second husband in any way, Lahs settled into the task of hating himself for his own non-gifted stupidity instead.

Noel DelMonde stared at the yacht’s controls without really seeing them. MacEntyre and her bosses had Chekov well and truly mind-fucked to an extent that stunned and shocked him. Not only had they hidden his true memory behind a set of nearly undetectable blocks, they’d gifted him with a new set of memories that tied all of his old personality traits to the causes for punishments and humiliations. Chekov’s bravery, stubbornness, and even his quirky sense of humor were now all traits abhorrent to the new Lahs persona. The Romulan slave character would actively participate in suppressing the real Human character.

This is fucked up, he thought towards MacEntyre.

The thought was reflected back to him, bouncing off the impenetrable, shielded fortress that was Lady Ve’el.

Silence, Joron, was her only reply.

“Long range sensors indicate the approach of the Fifteenth Centuria,” Spock reported. “I estimate they will require proof of identity in four point seven minutes.”

“Excellent, Tarvak,” MacEntyre said. “It will be good to see home again.”

“My Lady,” Del said, leaning in close to her, “May I speak privately?”

She frowned at him. This was the code phrase they had agreed upon if a matter came up that required them to discuss the mission. Such conversations were to be held verbally rather than telepathically, as it was easier to detect devices intended on picking up speech than those scanning telepathic communication. Putting her head as close as was possible to his – their faces were actually touching – she murmured, far too quietly for even Romulan ears, save those next to her lips, to hear, “Yes, Lieutenant Commander?”

“This Warrior Bond s’posed to be equal,” the engineer murmured. “So why I the junior husband?”

Pelori decided not to chastise him for not having read what had been included as basic information in his briefing packet. “You and Tarvak are equals – in your relationship. However, in the triad you have formed with me, I have assigned you rankings for my dealings with you. Tarvak is the older, therefore he is senior.” She felt the lieutenant commander nod, and couldn’t stop herself from asking, “why is this important to you?”

His wry grin touched her cheek. “I not wanna make a mistake by gettin’ all riled up over my Bonded’s supercilious superiority,” he said.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually going to make a concerted effort to further our aims,” she returned with a fair show of cynicism.

“But of course, my Lady,” he said – loud enough to be heard, and in Romulan. Then he reached down, took her hand, and softly pressed his lips to her fingertips. “I would be honored to serve you at any time.”

Then he smiled, and sat back in his seat, returning his attention to the ship’s controls. Emanations of curious disapproval came from the other pilot’s seat, and Pelori sent them back, as she had with DelMonde’s inappropriate thought. Unlike DelMonde, however, Spock acknowledged the silent correction with grace and proper chagrin.

“Registered Klii-sun vessel,” a harsh Romulan voice said from the ship’s communications board, “identify yourselves. State your business in this sector.”

Spock automatically opened the hailing frequencies. “I am Tarvak, of the Merdan House of the Province of Gariq,” he stated. “With me are my Bonded, Joron of the Bor’ah House, and our Lady, Ve’el of Klii-sun Province. We are traveling to Kol’ran Province to serve the Empire.”

“Will the Lady Ve’el present herself?” the Centurion asked.

Ve’el stepped forward. “I verify my senior husband’s statements,” she said. “I have the necessary authorization for entry into Kol’ran.” She turned to her junior husband. “Send the verifications, Joron.”

“At once, my Lady,” Joron replied.

Aboard the Bird of Prey, the Pilus, Zan, studied the material that had been sent from the Klii-sun vessel. All seemed in order. He glanced again at the viewscreen, categorizing those on it. The Lady Ve’el was a striking woman, the unusual coloring that was not uncommon in the Klii-sun Province giving her an ethereal beauty. Her First, Tarvak, was a strong, elegant male with an aristocratic bearing – none too surprising in a man of his wealth. Joron, the younger Second and Tarvak’s Warrior Bond was quite handsome, with an easy-going charm and the manner of one not born to either wealth or importance. Zan reflected that the gods must have smiled on him to have given him the destiny of a Bond with a male like Tarvak.

With his telepathic impressions confirmed, Zan signaled his Senior Officer to mark their identification beam as verified.

“Your identification has been recorded,” he said to the Lady Ve’el. “Glorious journey to you and your Household.”

As the Bird of Prey made a leisurely turn and headed back on its patrol route, Ve’el smiled approval at her husbands. Tarvak nodded, Joron gave one of his seemingly inexhaustible supply of wry grins.

The first hurtle had been passed.

The small yacht landed on Kol’ran with much the same authorization process. Before they were allowed to disembark, there was a brief but tense medical and telepathic scan done by what was obviously a member of the Praetorian Guard. Lady Ve’el was accorded a fair amount of respect, Tarvak only a trifle less, Joron less than that, and, of course, Lahs none at all.

Ve’el gave instructions to Lahs on securing porters to retrieve their belongings, then turned to the Guard. “Praefect,” she said, “My household and I will need apartments. If you would be so kind as to direct me to the nearest rental facilities until a proper residence can be obtained?”

“Certainly, Lady,” The tall, elaborately garbed soldier replied. “There is a communal hostel only a few blocks from here.” He pointed down the main, well-kept boulevard.

“My thanks, Praefect. And may I also enquire about where my husbands might find service to the Empire, befitting their station and interests?”

She waited patiently as the Romulan gave a rather more thorough telepathic scan of Tarvak and Joron. After a few moments, the guard smiled. “Ah, an adventuresome pair,” he said. “I would suggest, lady, that your husbands frequent the Senatorial Parlour. Important contacts can be made with the correct people there, with ample potential of finding suitable service opportunities.”

“The blessings of Telan be upon you, brave Warrior,” she said, and the Romulan bowed.

She nodded, and Tarvak gave a small bow in return, little more than an inclination of his upper body. Joron did the same, though his bow was a fraction of a centimeter deeper. Ve’el turned and headed the way the guard had indicated, with Tarvak a step ahead of her, to her right, and Joron a step behind and to her left. It was the proper, protective flanking of a Warrior Bond to their all-important female.

The hostel the guard had selected turned out to be perfect. It was a beautiful building with open balconies on the upper floors, consisting of a dozen or more small apartments, all served by a central cooking area, eliminating the need for individual kitchens. Each apartment had a number of bedrooms, as was required by the Household occupying it, bathing facilities, a common room which was part living room, part dining room, and a servant’s corner, usually a screened-off portion of the master bedroom.

Ve’el reviewed the available units, with Tarvak and Joron occasionally pointing out advantages or inconveniences. The landlord made only one suggestion – that a smaller, third bedroom be included in case the “young master” would need “a place for the at-times necessary recuperation,” the dark eyes sliding to Tarvak with a knowing half-smile. Ve’el permitted herself a small chuckle of acknowledgement, and selected a unit that was on the fourth level of the building, adjacent to the central lifts. When the agreement had been signed, she turned to her servant.

“Lahs, direct the porters here,” she said, tapping the place on the rental agent’s viewscreen. “Three blocks south of the harbor, the hostel on the left side of the boulevard, up the lift to the fourth level, the first unit on the right.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Lahs replied, bowing deeply.

“A handsome animal,” the landlord commented as the young man hurried away.

Ve’el only nodded absently. With her quick gesture, Tarvak and Joron again flanked her, and the three headed toward the lift to examine their new home.

Once the porters had brought their belongings, Tarvak and Joron each made moves to helping arrange their new home. Ve’el stopped them with a small shake of her head.

I know you are concerned for my servant, she told them both, But I assure you he is more than capable of serving all three of us.

From Joron’s mind came a somewhat lewd and rudely comical picture of Lahs ‘serving’ the three of them in an intimate, sexual way.

He is far too old for such sport, Ve’el returned, her thoughts an amused but disapproving color. And even with my intervention, I doubt your Bond would allow for such a thing.

It most certainly would not, came from Tarvak, just as disapproving and not at all amused.

It was just a jest, my Bonded, Joron said, not-quite contritely. His thoughts still contained a sparkle of wickedness. You know how I feel.

I do indeed, Tarvak returned, but from the tone, it was clear the apology would not yet be accepted.

Ve’el sighed. It was natural that there be this kind of tension between the Warriors. Her acceptance of them was a relatively recent development, and the jealousy and possessiveness inherent in such a Bond had not yet been fully conquered. As was usual in such cases, the junior member felt less of that than the senior male.

Tarvak, she suggested, do not allow your Bonded’s more boisterous sense of humor to cause you doubt. And Joron, remember your Bonded’s sensitivities.

Yes, my Lady, both responded, Tarvak with true apology, Joron still teasing.

Pelori MacEntyre sighed. It was going to be a long mission.

Nothin’ beats home cookin’, Noel DelMonde thought to himself cynically, but decided not to share with the group. He remembered reading somewhere that Romulan family dinners were frequently silent affairs. He wondered if that was really due to the fact that they were communicating telepathically as the text had posited, or if it was just because they hated each other’s guts as much as his little “family” did.

He moved his hand out of the way as the pathetic creature in Chekov’s body placed a new bowl of sauce within his reach and removed the old one. The meal was primarily made up of small servings of different types of meat or vegetables that each had its own special gravy. It was a much more labor-intensive meal than you’d ever get on a starship. Del was starting to get tired just watching the cooks trot in and out with a new tray every few minutes.

The apartment building had a central kitchen. Their slave-creature was responsible for serving them, but the dishes were prepared by the apartment staff. The used tableware all went back down to the lower level with them. At least poor ol’ Chekov… or what used to be Chekov… wasn’t going to get stuck washing the pile of plates they were racking up.

The fork Del had to use to spear the little grub-worm-looking morsels on his plate had a thin handle that was almost ten inches long. Spock and Lady Ve’el didn’t seem to be having any trouble with it. Of course, as they would no doubt point out, they had practiced. Looking up to make sure neither one of them were watching him, Del put a finger on one of the grub-worms to hold it still while he speared it.

It tasted a little like boiled shrimp… and a little like grub-worm, but was still a vast improvement over the re-constituted stuff they’d had to choke down on the Enterprise. Apparently real Romulans knew how to cook Romulan food better than a computer did.

“Tarvak,” Lady Ve’el said as she had so many times in their rehearsals, “is the pla’t’or to your liking? I gave the cook special instructions to make the dish conform to the guidelines your physician has prescribed.”

“It is well prepared, my Lady,” the Vulcan replied flawlessly as usual.

It was all so familiar that when Ve’el ordered, “Lahs, more water” Del half-expected Chekov to flub his line as usual and reply, “Yes, my Lady.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Ve’el’s slave creature murmured without thought of saying anything else.

“Joron,” the lady said, turning her silver eyes on him critically. “You’re not eating very much.”

DelMonde shrugged and put the half-eaten grubworm back on his plate. “I don’t seem to have much of an appetite this afternoon, my Lady.”

“It has been a trying day,” she conceded, sipping her water. “Go to your room and lie down.”

Del blinked at her. Her words were spoken using a tone that indicated a suggestion, but were phrased in the form of a command.

“You’re dismissed,” Ve’el clarified. “Lahs will bring your pills to you in a few moments.”

Oh? Del thought, brightening at the idea despite himself. Xenoneurophene time already?

Silence, Joron, the lady rebuked him without bothering to look up. You’ve been dismissed.

Taking into account how loud her voice was inside his head, how easily she’d read his thought when he hadn’t meant her to, and how aware he was of the comings and goings of the cooks, Del realized the Romulan Strawberry Queen was right. His shields were going a little ragged around the edges.

“Thank you for your consideration, my Lady,” he said as he rose, putting as much genuine gratitude into it as he could muster. Knowing he’d probably get another spank from her if he didn’t, he turned to Spock and added, “Enjoy the rest of your meal, Tarvak.”

He took some satisfaction in feeling the Vulcan get the little mental kick under the table from Ve’el he’d avoided.

“Rest well, my Bonded,” Spock wished him, belatedly.

The engineer bit down his mental tongue on the automatic “Fuck you, Captain Bastard” that welled up inside of him as he turned to leave. Throwing down his fork and storming out had been infinitely more satisfying.

Del had also gotten the “junior husband” treatment when bedroom assignments had rolled around. He was beginning to be less and less surprised by the inequality surrounding his supposedly equal Warrior Bond status. Romulans, in his short acquaintance with them, were turning out to be obsessively hierarchical. They were the sort of beings that had they been on the Titanic the night it sank, would have spent their last hours compulsively re-arranging the deck chairs so that the highest ranking chair would go down last.

This room wasn’t really meant to be a full bedroom. It was just an antechamber where the rental agent assured Lady Ve’el that her second husband could go to rest from the rigors of what that man seemed to be assuming would be the Bonded pair’s epically vigorous sex life. Del almost had to laugh at how green Spock had gone at that comment and accompanying thought.

The room was done in light colored natural woods with a few dark colored lacquered panels here and there for contrast. The lines of the few pieces of furniture was tastefully simple. If they’d been on Earth, Del would have called it a mixture of Danish Modern and Classical Japanese design sensibilities.

The thought of Earth made him sigh as he opened the sliding window that doubled as a door onto the room’s tiny balcony. From here, he could see the narrow river that ran a block away from their building. He looked down at the sparkling green water flowing between rows of shining chrome buildings and wondered if he’d ever see the muddy Mississippi again.

He didn’t notice the chime at first…. Or the Lahs-mind, for that matter. It was only after the third time that the slave-creature tapped the hanging bells behind the screened off entrance to the room that Del noticed he was there and remembered that this was the Romulan version of knocking. “Come.”

When it came to bedrooms, the engineer had, of course, fared much, much better than the poor drudge who entered carrying a small tray in one hand. Del couldn’t begin to imagine what the girlfriend of the person who owned this slave’s body would do if she found out her lover was going to be spending his nights in a little chamber just a few feet away from his mistress’s bed. The small windowless room was placed – with no sense of irony at all – directly adjacent to Lady Ve’el’s much more spacious walk-in closet --which did come with a window.

“Master,” the slave said in a voice that sounded like Chekov’s as he offered the glass of water to his superior without making eye contact.

Del suppressed the urge to sigh again as he accepted the water and held his hand out for the blue pills.

Instead of immediately turning it over, the creature brought the pillbox closer in to his own chest. “The Mistress suggested that you should lie down,” he said, keeping his eyes properly downcast.

The engineer was incongruously happy to see that somewhere deep inside this neurotic, cringing, Romulan menial some trace of the old stubborn, literal-minded, authority-worshipping Russian navigator still managed to survive.

“Hmph,” he snorted gruffly as he sat down on the edge of the room’s single bed to oblige the creature. The bed itself was on short legs, but it was set atop a raised dais that brought it almost up to a normal height.

“I guess I’m down pretty low on the ladder here,” Del said wryly as the slave handed him the pillbox, “if even you can give me orders now.”

The small tray crashed to the floor as the creature immediately dropped to his hands and knees in the sort of gesture of submissive repentance the navigator had never even come close to being able to perform correctly.

“Forgive my insolence, Master,” the creature begged in a tone of horrified self-loathing.

Way to go, Del, the engineer congratulated himself acidly. Great job of makin’ t’ings sooo much easier.

“No, no,” he said aloud, pulling the slave up by one arm and hoping the Strawberry Queen was too busy to have heard or noticed. “Don’t do that. Get up. Get up. I was just…” DelMonde paused. In the dialect of Romulan that they were speaking, verbs were intricately linked to acknowledgement of the social caste of each person in the conversation. There was, therefore, no grammatical way for him to express the thought, “I was just joking” to a non-gift. He had to settle for, “I was not serious. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master,” the pitiful thing replied, although it had no idea why it was not getting the beating it knew it deserved.

“Pull yourself together.” Del quickly brushed off the slave’s clothes. “Everything’s fine. Take your little tray. There you go.”

The creature was giving him a look that in another universe went with the thought, Noel has completely lost his mind.

“Go on, then,” the engineer ordered brusquely, pointing to the door. “Out. Now. Go.” The slave hastened to obey.

Del thought they’d gotten away with it. But, of course, Lady Ve’el stepped around the screen blocking the creature’s exit.

“Lahs.” Her voice was like ice.

“Mistress?” the creature acknowledged miserably.

She glared at the engineer. “Go clear the table.”

“Immediately, Mistress.”

The slave had almost made it out the door when she stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“We will speak of this later, Lahs,” she promised unsmilingly.

“Yes, Mistress,” the creature choked quietly as it was permitted to exit.

Del cast about for an appropriate way to address the situation as his character. “My Lady…” he began.

Ve’el put her finger to her lips in an incongruously Human gesture. She took a stickpin-sized device out of the inside of one of her sleeves and activated it. It was a jammer that would throw off any listening devices planted in the room.

“There’s no way to say “I’m joking” to a non-gift in Romulan,” Pelori MacEntyre began heatedly, “because you DO NOT joke with them. EVER.”

“Oh, so you heard that much, did you?” DelMonde asked, sitting back down on the edge of his bed and trying not act as guilty as he felt. Instead of answering, she strode forward and picked the glass of water up from the table beside his bed. “Take your pills,” she ordered, handing it to him. “Which, by the way, you are to NEVER refer to again as xenoneurophene. Not even inside your head. Understood? They’re isti’li.”

“Yeah, aspirin,” Del mumbled swallowing the pair. “Got it.”

“We may see these little lapses in our servant from time to time at first,” she said, crossing her arms. “And you were right to point it out to him. But don’t do anything to indicate that you’re going to tolerate it. And don’t joke. It only confuses and frightens him.”

“Yeah, I saw that…” The engineer blew out a long breath. “Listen, it wasn’t his fault. Don’t…”

“Don’t. Tell. Me. What. To. Do,” MacEntyre enunciated. “Understood?”

Del looked away and nodded. The first flush of xenoneurophene was starting to sparkle in his veins. It was a strange, unpleasant thing to feel simultaneously so powerful and so helpless. “So… Is this all you wanted to say?”

“Is there more that I need to say?” she replied pointedly.

“No.” Del shrugged diffidently. “Unless you’d just like to stand around and gloat for awhile.”

“Gloat?” The lieutenant put her hands on her hips. “About what? The fact that I’ve been completely right and you’ve been completely wrong? Everything that I tried to teach you has turned out to be for your own good – and the good of your friend? And now you – and maybe he -- have to learn it all the hard way because you insisted on being a drunken, belligerent fool?”

DelMonde had to smile in the face of this attack. “I've been missing you, Little Mac.”

“Pray you don’t have to see me again,” MacEntyre advised unsmilingly as she deactivated the scrambler. Only then did Del realize that even though they had the scrambler on, they’d carried on this conversation in Romulan.

There was a quiet tap at one of the doorchimes.

“Yes, Lahs?” Lady Ve’el called as MacEntyre hid the jammer inside her sleeve.

“Two packages have arrived, Mistress,” the slave replied without entering.

“Bring one of them to me,” she ordered, then smiled benignly on her second. “I’ve purchased a present for you, Joron. A little housewarming gift.”

“I don’t deserve it, my Lady,” the junior replied with gracious humility as her slave re-entered with a large velvety bag.

“Of course you do,” Ve’el replied, with a second undertone of meaning directly contradicting this statement that came straight from MacEntyre. She gestured Lahs to present her second with the bag. “This represents my wish for harmony in my household.” Joron removed a stringed instrument from the bag. He recognized it almost immediately as a lythyr, a thirty-stringed harp with a long neck. Ornate tuning dials ran vertically along its narrow body next to the lie of the strings. The second smiled as he ran his finger across them. “And you’ve bought one for Tarvak, too? How thoughtful.”

“Yes.” The Lady smiled. “Perhaps the two of you will soon be able to play duets for me.”

Joron returned her show of teeth. “Perhaps.”

“Come, Lahs,” she ordered her slave, gesturing him towards the door. “We’ll deliver the sister of this harp and then we can have our talk.”

In their wake, Noel DelMonde let his fingers slowly run down the strings of his new Romulan guitar and wondered how long it was going to take him to teach it how to sing the Jailhouse Blues.