Could Mohammed Move a Mountain?

Once he could think, Ambassador Gage seriously considered taking the matter to the captain. The only thing that stopped him was the rather delicate nature of the transaction – and fear of the wrath of Lita Monolem. As a touch of spite, he left the capsules where they had fallen and went to his cabin.

It hadn’t exactly been a profitable journey so far. No scores, several fights, Selli still not in his bed… He rubbed his jaw. Why couldn’t he connect with his customers? He’d been dealing for years – he knew these people. He knew – or should know – exactly how to handle them. Why wasn’t…

You know how to handle them, Lane? Is that why you pushed Kam? You know better than that. He doesn’t take well to being put in a corner, now, does he? The more trapped he feels, the more volatile he gets. If you’re so smart, if you know him so well, why’d you push him?

Devri, I was pushing.

He scowled. Dealing was an honorable profession. No one liked a pusher.

He decided to ease his aching jaw with a drink and some rest and ended up falling asleep, still nagged by the question of why this little trip was so unproductive.

He woke with a start several hours later, cursing in his native dialect. Still cursing, he got out of bed, found the com unit and called “Rand!” There followed a slight mix-up with an annoyed but very attractive Human female before Tomor’s face appeared on the small screen.

“What?!” the surly security man demanded.

“Get your ass home and I’ll tell you,” Gage told him. “Business,” he added and didn’t wait for Rand’s answer before switching off the com and beginning an angry, most un-Haven-like pacing.

“Tomor?” Uhura questioned, very annoyed at whatever member of her staff had let that call get through. “What did he want?”

“To ruin my life,” Tomor growled, coming back to the bed. “Beloved leaders can be a real pain in the ass. But you know all about that, don’t you, Beauty?” He picked up the full wine glass he’d set on the shelf over the bed hours before, draining it in one gulp. “I have to go.”

Uhura sat up in bed and pulled him into her arms. “It can wait,” she coaxed.

“That’s what I think. Gage obviously has other ideas.”

“So do I,” she purred.

Tomor didn’t pull away. “Duty calls, Beauty.”

“Just a few minutes, Tomor. We barely got started.”

“I’ve been here for hours.”

Uhura’s grin was positively wicked. “I know.” Her full body writhed sinuously against him. “Stay, Tomor.”

The Haven grinned back, tossing the wine glass over his shoulder. “Okay.”

Ten minutes later the com buzzed again. Uhura shrieked, but not from passion.

“Not now!” Tomor shouted. He looked down at the communications officer. “I have to go.” She dug her nails into his hips. “Beauty, I…” Her mouth again closed around his very swollen penis and he abruptly forgot what he was going to say.

“Rand!” came a furious voice from the intercom. “If you don’t get your ass down here in five minutes I’m coming to get you, you got me?!”

Ten minutes after his last call to his security specialist, Gage was waiting impatiently at the turbolift door. “About time,” he muttered as the doors finally hissed open. He started to step in but was stopped as a disheveled, angry Tomor Rand pushed him against the opposite bulkhead, pinning him there with a forearm against his throat.

“You wanted to see me, Boss?” Tomor growled.

Gage choked out a “Yes.”

Rand didn’t move. “What about?”

“Remember the Emperor? Your employer? He’ll be unhappy if you allow this mission to get sabotaged.”

The dark eyes blinked. “Sabotaged?”

“You heard right.”

Slowly Rand’s arm dropped. “What’s this about?”

“Come on and I’ll tell you.”

The Havens walked back to the ambassador’s rooms.

“I said to myself,“ Gage began, “why would I be acting like a pusher?”

“A pusher?” Rand repeated, his voice reeking distaste.

“Pusher,” Gage confirmed. “This is definitely not normal behavior, I said.”

Rand’s eyes narrowed. “Who slipped you what?”

“Ah, but it’s not just me, is it, lover-boy?”

Rand thought about that. “No,” he said at last.

“If we were not so perceptive, would we not think the Federation is full of loonies who we really don’t want to deal with?”

“Yep.”

“Who stands to gain if this great alliance fails before it gets started?”

“Nobody – but the slavers and the imperialists, who aren’t bright enough to figure the odds aren’t with them.”

“Too true, too true. Thing is,” Gage wondered conversationally, “what are they doing, and how?”

Rand smiled, a thoroughly chilling, delighted smile. “I’ll ask Coron.”

“Oh, please.”

“Talk,” Rand growled pleasantly. Selli Oran cowered in bed. The illustrious Captain Coron cowered under Rand’s threatening forearm. Fighting the urge to shout ‘resistance is useless,’ Rand added. “Now.”

“You enjoy your work, don’t you?” Coron tried to say nonchalantly.

Rand bared his teeth. “I love it. Especially when I’m feeling frustrated. Talk. I have a woman to get back to.”

“So do I.”

“Don’t bet on it. Talk.”

“About what? Damn it, Rand, get out of here and I’ll send you a pair of Orions when we get home.”

“Your getting home is getting more doubtful by the second.” Rand sighed. “Coron, I’m losing what little patience I had to begin with. If you don’t start talking, I start breaking bones.”

“Let go of me and be reasonable!”

Rand did, but only long enough to dispatch Selli who had been creeping up behind him with a heavy vase. “Let’s see,” Rand said, grasping his fellow Haven’s hand. “You don’t need your right arm, do you?

“Uh – “ Coron looked around for some way out, but Gage was leaning casually against the only exit. “What do you want to discuss?”

“Why the crew of this boat is being so twitchy,” Gage called in a friendly snarl. “It’s certainly nothing I’ve sold them.”

“Yes,” Rand agreed. “What is it that makes peaceful folk act irritable, snappish and none too bright?”

“I can only think of one thing,” Gage commented casually. “What about you, Captain Coron – excuse me, ex-Captain-and-possibly-soon-to-be-late-Captain Coron?”

“Uh – I’m sure you’d know more about that than…” the slaver began.

With a disgusted sigh, Rand casually snapped Coron’s wrist. The Haven cried out, then gasped, “Zenite!”

“Crude, but effective,” Rand said to Gage. The ambassador nodded.

“It not that I object to her profession…”

“Sneer at me like that one more time, DelMonde, and I’ll…”

“Judas. The man’s name is Judas. Try to remember that.”

“Keep out o’ this, Miller!”

“Listen DelMon – “

“Dav, I want to talk to you!”

“Not again, Judith.”

Jade Han reluctantly opened her eyes, stood, took a deep breath and shouted, “Enough! Places, we’re starting again!”

“An’ I supposed to sneer at you,” Del snapped to Ruth.

Jade sighed. This was not going well, not at all.

**********

“…don’t you know everything’s all right, yes, everything’s fine…”

“Ruth, this is comfort, not verbal castration.”

“Then tell – Judas – to keep his leers to himself!”

“You not be likin’ sneers, cher.”

“Again!”

**********

"How do we deal with a carpenter king…”

“Leonard, priests don’t drawl.”

“That’s how I talk, damnit!”

“It doesn’t have to be how you sing.”

**********

At least the zealots were.

**********

“I don’t know how to love him…”

“I can’t!”

“What do to, how to…”

“Oy god!"

“… move him…”

“Jesus Christ, Magdalene, Jesus Christ!”

“ He’s a man, he’s just a man
And I’ve had so many men before…”

“Shut up, all of you, it’s not funny!"

“So true, so true…”

“I’ll kill you, DelMonde!”

“Judas!”

“I’ll kill you, Judas!”

“Again!”

**********

“I’m not going out there. You can’t make me,” Sulu said sullenly. Daffy straightened his costume.

“Yes, you can, schmuck, or Han will have my head.” She gave him a push. “Now go!”

Sulu stumbled onto the stage – easy enough to do in four-inch high heels, he muttered to himself. No one else has to wear such an elaborate get-up.

Loud, raucous catcalls and whistles greeted him, and Jade Han demanded, “Strut, peacock!”

Alright, you bastards, you want a performance? I’ll give you a performance!

He took a deep breath, then threw his head back and went into the carefully choreographed routine, sensually speaking rather than singing the words of his one and only number.

“Jesus, I am overjoyed to meet you face to face…”

He strutted over to Ramon Ordona’s kneeling figure.

“You’ve been getting quite a name all around the place…”

He loomed over the young Spaniard, looking down past the bright green thong, and sheer stockings that encased his legs.

“Healing cripples, raising from the dead…”

He did a quick, suggestive bump-and-grind. The green and gold cape shifted licentiously. Ramon swallowed.

“And now I understand you’re –

He ran his tongue over his brightly colored lips, fluttering his heavily made-up eyelashes. He placed his hands on his lips, the material of the fingerless gloves and forearm sheathes matching the stockings and the mostly sheer halter that covered less than half of his chest, then thrust his hips forward, loading the next word with innuendo.

“ – God…”

And Ramon grabbed his legs, going weak, gasping out “Madre del dios!” in helpless eroticism.

The cast dissolved into hysteria. Ruth fell against Del, both laughing too hard to stand on their own. McCoy snorted, but he was blushing. Dav Miller snickered, then winced as his wife smacked him on the shoulder. Daffy folded her arms in satisfaction, then stuck her tongue out at the disciple with bruised jaw and Russian accent. Jade waited until the pandemonium had died down before folding her arms.

“Very good, Mr. Sulu,” she said, “but Ramon, dear, that’s not in the script.”

Then she took a deep breath and shouted above the renewed laughter, “Again!”

Jim went to his cabin to get his costume. He was running late and Jade would kill him. He swore at Spock’s preoccupation with his domestic life, McCoy’s refusal to discuss Spock’s preoccupation with his domestic life, diplomatic shuttle runs, and the life of a starship commander in general. Then he began cursing the particulars, public relations most notably. Damn play!

He was almost to his quarters when he felt something under his boot. He looked down, lifting his foot. There was a smear of gold jelly on the sole. “What the…” he began, then spotted two other spots of the same color on the deck. He bent to pick them up. Capsules.

Capsules?

Capsules!

It was the last straw. His already failing patience died an abrupt and violent death. He stormed to a com unit, calling angrily for those crew members he’d noticed behaving oddly.

“DelMonde, Valley, Sulu, Gollub: my office on the double!”

“I’m changing clothes first!” Sulu declared as the captain’s voice faded away.

“He said on the double,” Jade pointed out.

“What we do?” Del wanted to know.

“I’m changing clothes first,” Sulu insisted.

“Get going!” Jade snapped. “I want you back here as soon as…”

“I’m not going anywhere dressed like this!”

“The entire crew is going to see you dressed like that eventually, you know,” Daffy cackled.

“I’ll bet I know,” Ruth muttered.

“So tell th' rest o' us, you know so much.”

“The captain knows.”

“Know what?”

“About us and the ambassador, Cajun.”

“I not go nowhere wit' her, she crazy!”

“I’m changing…”

Jade stepped to an intercom and called, “Security!”

Without further delay, Ruth, Del, Daffy dragged a furiously protesting Sulu from the rehearsal hall.

Jim was all prepared to launch into an angry demand for explanations when his crew members came trooping in. Instead, he found himself gawking at Sulu, who was not only as out of uniform as the others were, but was nearly out of the outlandish clothing he was wearing. He also had several fresh bruises. “What the…” Jim began.

“We met the Indiian delegation outside the lift,” Sulu answered sullenly before Jim could finish the question.

“We were victorious,” Gollub added.

“They attacked?” Jim asked.

“Again,” Sulu muttered.

Of course. Jim sighed, then ignored the incident to focus on why he’d called the four to his office. He held out an open palm, showing them the capsules. “I’d like an explanation of these,” he said.

“Oh shit,” Sulu groaned whole-heartedly.

“Crass, LeRoi,” Daffy said to him. Ruth hit Gollub on the arm, then glared at Sulu herself.

“Roy!” she hissed.

“They’re not mine!” he hissed back.

“I want an explanation,” Jim repeated. “Now.”

They all began talking at once. Jim yelled “shut up!” They all stopped. “Mr. Sulu, you’re supposedly the ranking officer. Start talking.”

Sulu scowled. “I can’t explain where those drugs came from, sir,” he said.

“You can, mister, or spend the next week in the brig,”

After a short, tense pause, Sulu said, “Someone dropped them.”

“Who?” Jim demanded.

Sulu shifted uncomfortably.

“Who!” Jim said again.

“Gage?” Gollub suggested.

Sulu, Ruth and DelMonde glared at her.

“I’m a groupie, not a racer,” she declared blithely, then stuck out her tongue. DelMonde reached for her, Ruth grabbed him, Sulu launched himself at Ruth.

Jim shouted, “Attention!”

“I’ll kill you, Daffy,” Ruth snarled and the four officers snapped to.

Jim began pacing in front of them. “Now, ladies, gentlemen… explain ‘groupie’, ‘racer’, your references to Ambassador Gage, and these drugs. Or you’re all ensigns for life.”

“We can’t talk about these things!” Ruth whined.

“I wouldn’t bet on that, Ensign. Tell me, Ensign, what’s a racer?”

She swallowed and said barely loud enough to be heard, “A needle racer.”

“Groupie, Ensign Gollub?”

“Uh… a fan and friend of needle racers, sir.”

“Good. Drugs, Ensign DelMonde?”

“Needle racers known fo’ takin’ recreational chemicals, sir.”

Jim held up the capsules. “And these drugs are…?”

“Amber, sir.”

“I see. And what does Ambassador Gage have to do with all this, Ensign Sulu?”

The silence was longer than Jim liked, but Sulu did finally answer. “Gage is a dealer, sir.”

“A what?!”

Sulu winced. “A dealer. He – sells chemicals.”

“The Haven ambassador sells chemicals.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jim was silent for several minutes. Then he looked hard at each officer in turn. “I trust this is it, except what Mr. Gage might have?”

There were mumbles of “Yes, sir,” from Gollub, Valley and Sulu. DelMonde glared at the deck. Valley shouted furiously, “You’re still taking sapphire?!”

Dark eyes flashed up. “Sometime!” the engineer answered belligerently.

“You schmuck!”

“You get married!”

“What’s that got to…”

“Every’ting an’ you know it!”

“Not now, ya mefager!” Gollub shouted.

“ENOUGH!” Jim bellowed, then added tightly, “I take it that you have chemicals in your possession, Ensign DelMonde?”

“It therapeutic,” DelMonde growled from between clenched teeth, “an’ legitimate. I not get it from no dealer. It prescribed by a Fleet doctor.” He glowered at Valley. “I need it.”

“Not if you’d…” she began sharply.

“Shut up, Ensign Valley,” Jim advised tersely. “I take it all of you are customers of Ambassador Gage?”

“Former, sir,” Sulu corrected brusquely. He paused, then added, “Gage was trying to sell me those capsules. They – fell – when I refused.”

Gollub snickered. “I just bet they did.”

Sulu glared at her but continued. “I assumed he picked them up.”

“Because the putz wouldn’t waste the stock,” Gollub snorted.

“Shut up, Ensign Gollub,” Jim seethed.

The com buzzed.

“Captain Kirk,” the Haven ambassador’s voice said, “I’d like to see you at your earliest convenience. In my cabin, if you please.”

All of Jim’s anger abruptly found a single focus. “I’d like to see you, too, Mr. Ambassador,” he growled. “I’ll be right there.” He snapped off the com, then added “Dismissed,” to the alleged officers and gentlebeings who were overcrowding his office.

He was stopped at the door by Sulu’s, “Sir?”

“What?” he said without turning back.

“Our ranks?” came the insolent query.

“What about them, Ensign?” he replied with genuine pleasure, and strode purposefully from the room.

Gage leaned nervously against the bulkhead, not smoking the pipe he’d lit. “Hey, Rand,” he said, “what if Kirk doesn’t believe us?”

“We keep him here until he realizes he’s been behaving like a rabid jackass,” Rand replied nastily.

“I meant that we aren’t the saboteurs,” Gage clarified.

Rand snorted. “Why’d we be tellin’ him if we were?”

“SOS.” Which in Haven meant ‘save our skins.’

Rand nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe if we get a more – uh – respectable corroboration?”

“Sarek?”

“We are telling the truth.”

“Indeed.” Gage grinned. “Go get him. And while you’re at it, get Costain. He can vouch for our honesty.” The ambassador paused. “What the hell, Lindgren, Raasha and Pana-Vel too,” he added, naming the ambassadors from Terra, Alpha Centauri and Cygni.

Rand grinned back. “The more the merrier,” he said, and left the room.

Gage sighed, pushing himself away from the wall. With luck – a commodity he seemed disastrously short on lately – the sabotage wouldn’t have progressed to the point where the other ambassadors were beyond reason. He frowned at the slowly dying embers of his pipe, relit it, and inhaled deeply. “And I suppose somebody should tell Monolem,” he muttered, and moved to the com to do just that.

After she’d screeched at him for not informing her sooner, and threatened the lives of both Selli and Coron – to which Gage offered his second at the next Family Board Meeting – she told him, bluntly, to handle it. He assured her he was doing just that, and she threatened his life if the deal they were going through all this for wasn’t closed exactly as the Emperor wanted. He was about to ask her why she wasn’t able to get her appealing ass to their VIP quarters to see to the negotiations herself, when he heard a female groan of “Lita, come on.”

“Oops, sorry, Miss Monolem,” he apologized, and quickly closed the com.

Fifteen minutes later, Rand returned with Sarek, Jole Costain, Hamid Raasha, Pana-Vel, and Cordelia Lindgren.

“Hi, there,” Gage greeted his fellow ambassadors.

“Mr. Ambassador,” Sarek returned.

“Yeah.” For a moment, Gage considered opening with ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I called you all here,’ but thought better of it. “Have any of you noticed,” he said instead, “that the crew of this ship is behaving rather irrationally? And that we behave rather irrationally if we’re off this deck for a few hours?”

There was a short silence, then all the ambassadors began to speak at once. Then, being diplomatic professionals to a man – woman, being, Gage politically corrected his thought – every one of them stopped to politely let someone else go first. The Haven sighed and picked a face. “Sarek?”

“I have not noticed such a change in myself,” the Vulcan stated. “However, my wife has shown a regrettable tendency toward irritability when away from our cabin.”

“Vulcans are immune, right?” Rand muttered. Of course, Sarek heard him.

“Hardly. My son’s behavior has been most distressing.”

“You always think that,” Lindgren put in. Sarek frowned. The two had served together in the diplomatic corps for years. “I’m willing to admit I've been a little testy,” she added.

“I have been most unreasonable,” Costain confessed forthrightly, as terminally honest as all Indiians were. He shook his burgundy-haired head. “I don't understand it.”

Raasha sheepishly admitted his own lack of control. The Cygnian, Pana-Vel, shrugged.

Gage nodded. “This mission, gentlebeings, is the victim of deliberate sabotage.” He went on to describe the ridiculously simple but undeniably clever plan to flood the ship with zenite gas, with the VIP deck carefully filtered. He confessed that it was, unfortunately, members of his own delegation who had planted the unrefined zenite in the ventilation system. He then assured them all that the perpetrators were confined and would be dealt with most severely when they returned to the Empire. “Our problems are to convince the commander of this boat that there is a problem, then find a way to fix it,” the Haven concluded.

As he finished speaking, the door to his cabin hissed open and a livid, furious James T. Kirk stormed in.

“What the hell do you’re think you’re doing, dealer!” the captain thundered.

“Trying to save you and yours,” Gage answered. “And stand no chance of making a credit on the deal. True heroism, Captain. You see…”

“You’ve been selling drugs on my ship!” Kirk shouted.

“Of course,” the Haven said. “We’ve got to…”

”OF COURSE?!” Kirk screamed.

“Careful, Captain,” Rand interjected, “You’ll strain something.”

“Captain Kirk, calm yourself,” Jole Costain said earnestly.

Furiously Kirk took a swing at the Indiian. Costain sidestepped it easily and Sarek’s hand immediately came to the Human’s shoulder. There was a moment’s pause.

“Zenite,” Gage said succinctly.

“Rabbi, you’re supposed to be sympathetic!”

Judy Miller scowled. “Daphne, grow up,” she snapped.

Daffy Gollub glared in offended indignation. “I was busted!”

“You deserved it.”

“You don’t even know what I…”

“I know you, Daphne. And I’ve got real problems.”

“Right, like your stupid meshuginah vendetta against the stupid meshunginah play that’s got nothing to do with the realities of the stupid meshuginah Galilean rabbi,” Daffy snorted derisively.

“And what would an unobservant pitsele like you know about it?” Judy spat. “If you wouldn’t act like such a yutz you wouldn’t have these problems!”

“I'm not a racer, it’s not my problem…”

“I have work to do,” Judy snarled, turning from the chemist. “You deserved it. Go away.”

As Daffy stomped off, Judy’s voice followed her.

“And convert to Buddhism while you’re at it!”

When Jim awoke, his head felt fuzzy. And his shoulder was sore. He sat up groggily and heard Sarek’s voice.

“I trust you are uninjured, Captain.”

Memory returned in a flash. Jim was more than surprised by what had happened, and no more so than by the vivid picture of his own obvious hysteria. “What the devil is going on here?” he murmured in disconcerted puzzlement.

“Selli Oran and Relf Coron placed unrefined zenite into the ventilation system of your ship,” Tomor Rand explained. “With this deck filtered.”

“They intended to cause incidents of such magnitude,” Sarek continued, “that the Haven Trading Empire would seriously reconsider its petition for Federation membership.”

“Slavers and imperialists,” Gage put in contemptuously.

“They could have easily succeeded, Captain,” Costain added. “Witness our – clashes.” The Indiian smiled apologetically.

Jim considered Costain’s words, recalling that he had had dealings with Indiians in the past that had been reasonable, civilized, and sane. Costain was an emotional man, true, but far from being a raving, uncompromising religious fanatic. And Jim hadn’t been acting all that rationally himself. He remembered the effect zenite had had on him on Ardana – and suddenly realized, with a crew gone berserk, just how much danger his ship was in.

“We’ve got to get into the ventilation system,” he said.

“Devri, what brilliance,” Rand muttered.

“I’m well acquainted with starship design,” Costain offered.

“And I am willing to give whatever assistance I can,” Sarek put in.

“I’ve got stimulants if…” Gage began, then grinned at Kirk’s frown. “No, I guess not.”

“Sarek,” Jim said, “if you could get Spock down here, that would be more than enough help.”

“Couldn’t you simply order him here?” Lindgren asked.

Jim looked hesitant. “Yes, I could, Ms. Ambassador, but I’m not entirely certain he’d obey.”

“I have a headache,” Spock said aloud, but no one on the Bridge took any notice of his words. He had the con, and a dull, unrewarding task it was. He was feeling singularly unappreciated. Everyone around him – captain, wife, father, crew – was behaving irrationally and illogically and he was the only one who seemed to notice.

The sound of the turbolift doors hurt his ears and he turned in annoyance to glare at the offending party. Ruth glared back. She came over to him, holding up her arm.

“Do you see this?” she demanded.

He did not notice anything remarkable and said so.

“You don’t notice anything different about my uniform?” She didn’t give him time to answer before shrieking, “I’m an ensign!”

He closed his eyes with the thundering pain. “I have a headache, my wife,” he grimaced.

“Suffer!” she retorted.

“I am,” he assured her. When she simply stood, staring at him, her hands on her hips, he sighed and asked. “And what did you do to merit this demotion?”

“If I’m not going to get any sympathy, I’m not going to tell you!” Ruth shouted and stomped off toward the Science Station.

“Good,” Spock muttered and returned to contemplating his own misery.

Then the com on the arm of the con buzzed. He slammed his fist down on it to stop the piercing cacophony, said, “Ow,” as the side of his hand bruised, then added, “Spock.”

“Spock,” his father’s voice repeated unnecessarily.

“What do you want, Father?” he growled.

“I wish you to come to my cabin,” Sarek said.

Spock sighed, noting that Ruth’s venomous glare had been turned on the com. “I have duty.”

“This is of vital importance.”

“It always is,” Ruth sneered.

“Be silent, Ensign Valley,” Spock ordered.

“I'll have a headache, Spock!” she warned. He ignored her.

“I have the con, Father,” he said.

“This is a matter of some urgency and is crucial to the ship’s security,” Sarek responded.

“So call Roy!” Ruth snapped. “Who, by the way, is an ensign too!”

“My wife, enough,” Spock told her curtly.

“Spock I do not ask this lightly,” Sarek continued. “Turn command over to your second officer.”

“An order, Father?” Spock asked pointedly.

“If you must have it so, Spock.”

“You are not a Starfleet officer,” came the warning snarl.

“But I am a Federation official. You could respect that.”

“He’ll pull ‘think of your mother’ next,” Ruth grumbled.

“Woman, be still!” Spock commanded fiercely. Ruth turned to retort, then stopped at the danger that emanated from him. “I am on my way, Father,” he snapped, and closed the com. Then he stood, facing Ruth.

“Not one word, wife,” he instructed darkly, and left the Bridge.

Spock found his father not in his cabin, but with Ambassador Gage and James Kirk. He was hardly surprised to find his captain there; after all, Spock was doing all his work. The First Officer frowned but said nothing. After several moments of silence, he prompted, “Father?”

“Breathe deeply, Spock,” was all Sarek said.

Spock’s frown deepened. “I beg your pardon?” was a growl from his lips.

“Your system must be somewhat clear for his discussion. Breathe.”

Spock stiffened. “I am in control, Father.”

“Hardly, Spock. Breathe.”

“I have no time for this nonsense,” Spock snarled, “though obviously the captain has!” He took a step past Sarek. “Excuse me!”

“Spock, wait,” Kirk said.

“For what? To be told to breathe?!”

Kirk grasped his shoulders. “Spock, listen to me…”

Spock violently shook off the touch. “He has brought disharmony to my home, distress to my wife – my perfect wife,” he enunciated to Sarek, “and now he tells me to breathe?!”

“He has a reason,” Kirk said hastily. “Please, just sit down and wait.”

“And I’ll get you something to help you relax,” the Haven ambassador offered.

Spock turned a furious glare on him. “You will do no such thing!”

“Okay, okay,” Gage said. “Backing off, Commander.”

Spock stared at each of the men in turn, then, fuming, sat down and waited.

After nearly an hour, Spock was feeling rather sheepish. He could not fathom why he had behaved so atrociously, nor why his control had deserted him. And in front of his father… Shame was beginning to replace his chagrin.

He finally enquired of the captain, without looking at him, “What did you wish to tell me, sir?”

Kirk let out a sigh of obvious relief. “Zenite in the ventilation system, Spock.”

Spock considered that. It neatly explained everything. He glanced up. “How, Captain?”

“Allow me,” Ambassador Gage said. Jim nodded. “Sabotage. By certain misguided members of my delegation, I’m afraid. They hoped to convince us not to join a Federation full of loonies.” The Haven grinned. “Trouble was, we already know that.”

Spock didn’t respond to the ambassador. Instead, he addressed his captain. “What needs to be done?”

“First of all, transfer all ship’s operations to the Auxiliary Bridge,” Jim replied. “We’ll wear filter masks and run the Enterprise from there. Ambassador Costain’s already at work on the ventilation system.”

“I will offer him all possible assistance,” Sarek added.

“Yes, of course,” Spock acknowledged, then paused. “Father…”