PAULTIC CAME INTO SICKBAY just as Genti was leaving. They nodded to one another.
"Under the weather?" asked the communications officer.
"Under something," muttered Genti, and was gone.
Doctor Chin stood next to one of the diagnostic platforms, peering up at the dormant life-functions display with her arms folded tightly across her chest.
She didn't turn away from it, either, until Paultic was more than halfway across the room. And as soon as she'd acknowledged his presence there, she resumed her scrutiny of the thing.
"I don't want to say anything," remarked Paultic, "but you're staring at a dead display."
Chin grunted, supplying no more answer than that. But a moment later, she spun about, her dark eyes alert as if after a long sleep.
"So," she said, "what can I do for you?"
Paultic looked down into her delicately sculptured face. And blushed, despite himself.
"It's not really a medical problem," he told her.
She smiled. "I'll be the judge of that."
"No—really. It's actually more of a … um, political problem."
The smile faded a little. "Really?"
He nodded. "I need some advice."
She searched his eyes, saw the trouble there. "All right," she said. "Then let's repair to my office."
A couple of moments later, she had closed the door behind him. They took seats on either side of her desk.
She regarded him patiently, waiting for him to begin. So he did.
"On my last shift," he said, "we received a message from a freighter captain. He said that the captain of one of our other starships—the Enterprise—had been stranded or something on Tranquillity Seven."
Chin raised an eyebrow. "Interesting planet to get stranded on."
"Just what I thought—especially since we just dropped that archaeologist off there. But there's more interesting to come." He licked his lips. "It's still not clear to me how this captain got separated from his ship—I mean, the message was garbled, and we didn't get too many details from the freighter anyway. But Martinez seemed to understand the whole thing without too much trouble. No sooner do we break contact than he's asking Bodrick to chart a course for Trank Seven. Again."
The doctor leaned back in her chair, truly interested now.
He shrugged. "Naturally, I began to set up a channel to the nearest starbase, figuring that the captain will want to report his being out of position if the Romulans should start something. But just for protocol's sake, I clear it with him. And what do you think he says? 'No thanks, Lieutenant. We won't be gone long enough for it to matter.' Or something to that effect."
Chin regarded him. "That is a little strange—under the circumstances. I was under the impression that we weren't to budge from our position."
Paultic nodded. "You're right—we weren't. I was on the board when the orders came in. And yet, Martinez just diverges from them on his own authority. Worse, he doesn't even let anybody know he's leaving." He cursed softly. "It's more than a little strange, Doc—it's court-martial material."
Chin's forehead wrinkled. "I see."
"That's not even the end of it. As soon as my shift is over, Stuart takes me aside. 'I don't want you discussing what happened on the bridge with anyone,' he says. 'Not even those who were there at the time. This is a much bigger deal than it seems. Crucial, in fact, to Federation security.'
"And you should have seen the way he looked at me. As if he was ready to kill me if I didn't agree to keep my mouth shut." Paultic looked down and saw that his hands had balled into fists. He relaxed them. "I hate to tell you what I think, Doc."
"Go ahead," she urged him.
"I've got a hunch that the captain and Stuart are mixed up in something serious—something the Federation wouldn't quite approve of. And they're willing to risk leaving their position in order to keep it covered up."
Chin's dark eyes narrowed. "Then you think this other captain—the one who's stranded on Tranquillity Seven—is somehow in league with them?"
Paultic nodded. "Kirk, James Tiberius. I looked him up in the computer, to see if I could find out anything useful about him. His record, as it turns out, is exemplary—but he knows Martinez pretty well. It seems they attended the academy together."
The doctor harumphed, much as she would have over a distrubing reading on a diagnostic display.
"Kirk," she repeated. "I believe Vedra spoke of him once." She scowled. "But she seemed impressed with him—and Vedra did not impress easily."
"One never knows," said Paultic. "Up until now, I was pretty impressed with Captain Martinez." He shook his head. "Hell, I would've given my life for him if he'd asked me to."
Chin chuckled dryly. "Yes," she said. "I echo the sentiment." For a moment, her eyes went unfocused as she contemplated Paultic knew-not-what. But after a while, they took on a new hardness, a new opacity. She fixed him with that gaze.
"I must tell you," she said, "that under normal circumstances, I would have a hard time giving credence to any of this. But I've been seeing some pretty puzzling things myself."
Paultic leaned forward. "Like what?"
She indicated the area outside her office with a tilt of her head. "Genti—and the others in engineering. They all have a touch of radiation sickness. It seems that one of the security people was sent in to inventory the dilithium, and he didn't seal the chamber up right when he left."
"But why is security counting crystals? Isn't that engineering's job?"
"It always has been," said Chin. "Now, with Vedra gone, I can see why the captain would want to tighten the controls down there. But to send a security officer to inventory the dilithium? It seems like overkill."
She winced at her own choice of words.
"And then, of course, there is the matter of Vedra herself."
Paultic saw the doctor blanch a little.
"That's right," he said. "You doubted it was a suicide right from the beginning."
She nodded. "Yes. I did. But I put my trust in the captain's hands. And when he told me that the overwhelming evidence pointed to suicide—even after a second investigation—I talked myself into believing it."
She paused.
"But now, I wonder if I could've been right in the first place." Her brow furrowed suddenly, and her hand shot to her mouth.
"What is it?" he asked.
Her hand fell away. "The containers," she breathed.
Paultic saw where she was headed. "None of us knew what was in them," he said. "We still don't." He pounded his fist on the desk, and the synthetic material shivered. "Damn! Maybe that's what it's all about—the contents of those containers."
Realization devolved upon him almost too fast for him to sort it out.
"What if Martinez and Stuart found something valuable down there on Exo III? And they wanted to keep it for themselves—or split it with those geologists—without the Federation ever finding out it existed?"
"And then someone stumbled onto their plan," said Chin, her voice strangely stiff and emotionless now. "Someone like Vedra."
"They would have had to get rid of her," said Paultic.
But the doctor shook her head suddenly—as if she were trying to bring herself out of a trance.
"No," she said. "What about Banks? He was down there with them on Exo III. Martinez detests him. He would never have involved himself in a scheme alongside Banks—never have allowed himself to become dependent on Banks' goodwill."
Paultic swallowed. "Doc, things are different between them now. I used to catch them glaring at each other all the time—but not anymore. Just before, when the captain left the bridge, he turned the conn over to Banks. And it's not the first time that's happened since we left Exo III—though I would've called it pretty farfetched before that."
Chin took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Do you know what we're talking about here, Lieutenant? What we're accusing our captain of?" She counted the charges off on her fingers. "Conspiracy. Treason. Murder."
He nodded, suddenly aware of a weakness in his knees. "I know. And we don't know how far it goes—or who's in on it."
"Vedra would have called it all speculation," said the doctor. "Wild speculation." She massaged a temple with two fingers. "Perhaps Martinez and the others have a perfectly good explanation for all this."
Paultic smiled a bitter smile. "And perhaps not."
She looked at him soberly. "And perhaps not," she repeated. Then she drew herself up and leaned forward over her desk. "In any case, we must have evidence before we can make any formal charges."
"Then we'll have to get some," he told her.
"Agreed. And in the meantime, I'll stay on top of this Kirk affair. Doctors have certain privileges, and I mean to exercise them."
He held out his hand.
"Thanks for listening, Doc."
She took the proffered hand, surprising him with two things—the firmness of her grasp and the iciness of her skin.
I guess, he told himself, she's as scared as I am.
* * *
It wasn't that Kaith was such a bad host. In point of fact, Kirk had come to appreciate his dry, unexpected wit. And he had turned out to be a formidable chess player in the bargain.
It was just that the waiting had begun to get to him. He couldn't leave the spaceport; he couldn't even venture out of the portmaster's office for fear of being spotted.
True, his accommodations were spacious in comparison to his quarters on the Enterprise—but they still felt confining. It was one thing to live in a closet, out there in the infinite reaches of space—and quite another to dwell in even the most sumptuous planetbound palace.
One thing the waiting did, however, was give him time to heal. The cruel wounds left by his bonds responded to the salves Kaith had given him. Soon, there were only thin red scars, which would likely fade to nothing.
Unfortunately, it also gave him time to think. And thinking inevitably led to worry.
If the Enterprise's abrupt departure had been caused by the Romulans, the situation must have been about to break wide open. Which meant a brief and deadly confrontation, rather than a prolonged jockeying for position.
By now, certainly, the conflict must have been resolved—one way or the other. Then why hadn't the ship returned for him? Why hadn't Spock brought it back to Trank Seven?
The possibilities made him shudder.
And then, after he had been Kaith's guest for more than a week, word came that there was a ship on its way to pick him up.
"No," said the portmaster, aware of Kirk's disappointment. "It's not the Enterprise. But it is a Federation vessel, and it'll get you a lot closer to the Enterprise."
"Did you catch its name?" he asked.
The blond man nodded. "The Hood. Commanded by one Joaquin Martinez." He must have seen something in Kirk's face then, because he added: "Do you know him?"
The captain nodded. "We went to school together."
"Good," said Kaith, pausing for a moment to light his pipe. "Then perhaps you'll be able to get some of those answers you're looking for."
Kirk grunted. "Perhaps I will."