Disclaimer: Paramount own the characters and the setting.

Chapter 1

McCoy reflected that if it was biologically possible, Kirk would have had steam emerging from his ears. He'd never seen the captain keeping such a tight lid on his temper and he was tempted to stand clear in case something blew.

Spock, however, was either oblivious to the captain's mood or didn't recognise it as a problem. "How many people are requesting asylum, Captain?" he asked, almost before Kirk had stepped off the transporter platform.

"Asylum is not the word I'd use. Bail jumpers, or renegades, or delinquents..."

"But the government of Acxis 7 is not pressing charges," Spock interrupted in tones of moderation.

"Of course they aren't. If they stick this bunch in gaol, their relatives will only turn up to visit. They want them gone, and I don't blame them. Only I don't want them on my ship, and I don't suppose wherever we take them will want them either." Kirk stormed out into the corridor, sweeping his officers along with him. "I've never seen anything like them, Spock. They're completely bizarre. Their clothes look like rags, the children are running around like animals. The government have put them up in a State Residence, a sort of glorified country villa, and the moment I arrived they started demanding that I complain to the President about the state of their accommodation. Because they've trashed it. But if you try to reason with them, they just lose interest. I was sorely tempted to hit a couple of them."

"You discovered how they come to be here?"

"They say a commercial freighter accepted them as passengers to Rigel and then dumped them here. They claim it's piracy. I wouldn't have waited to reach orbit." He took a deep breath. "Bridge." The turbo lift doors slid shut. "Spock, we need accommodation for eight family units, a total of seventeen adults, ten children, down to age six months. No papers, by the way. You'd better offer them medical check ups, Bones. I don't think they'll turn down anything free, and I'd feel safer if you ruled out the main communicable diseases. And a separate rec room. I don't think they'll get on too well with the crew. And can you organise someone to be a liaison? Someone with a level head, endless patience and plenty of spare time."

"We can hardly keep them isolated, Jim. Perhaps if we specify a couple of decks and ask them..."

"Sure, we'll ask them not to wander. Oh, you know what else? You'll get on with them, Bones. They refuse to leave by transporter."

Emerging onto the bridge, Kirk called Chekov over. "How long have you been on duty?"

"Only one hour, Captain."

"Excellent. Get a couple of security guards and take a shuttle down to the surface. Uhura will be getting the coordinates for you. Take the crew transport. You've got twenty-seven people to collect, including ten kids. Their luggage is being transported. You should be able to do it in a couple of trips. Okay?"

"Should the guards be armed, sir?" Chekov asked uncertainly.

"No. No, I think that would be going too far. They're civilians, seeking repatriation. But they're also troublemakers. To put it mildly. It would be sensible to search them for weapons before they board the shuttle."

Chekov nodded apprehensively and left. Spock had returned to his station, and was reviewing his planned timetable for a visit to the K4 Nebula with just a hint of regret. "Where are we taking them, Captain?"

"Starbase Eleven, Mister Spock. Don't worry, we can still go through the Nebula."

"Around the Nebula. We are bound by the traffic restrictions in that area, even though we have permission to pass closer than is normal. Given the risks associated with the region, I thought you might prefer to delay the mission until the civilians have disembarked."

"And then again, I might not. We're better shielded than all the ships that have disappeared, and we're forewarned. And as you point out, we're going round it, not through it. I did stress to the leader of these people that we're a military and research vessel, not a passenger liner."

"I'll go and get sick bay ready for visitors," McCoy offered. "And Jim..."

Kirk twisted to look at the Doctor.

"I've dealt with these Shookah people before. You can't win. Just get them off the ship as soon as you can."

***

Chekov finished accessing the coordinates and other data he needed for the trip and turned to the Security Guard, Reeves, who was calling up information relevant to his responsibilities on the screen at the co-pilot's station.

Ensign Reeves muttered, "Bloody hell," under his breath, and grimaced at Chekov. "These freaks have left a trail of outstanding writs and unpaid bills from Earth to here. I can't figure out how they keep persuading people to transport them..."

"They persuaded us," Chekov pointed out. "Who are they?"

"Gypsies, only without the traditional Romany respect for law and order, hygiene and universal peace and brotherhood."

Chekov frowned. "Gypsies are a recognised ethnic and cultural grouping."

Reeves snickered. "I forgot political correctness was invented in Russia. Sure, but a few of them still manage to give the rest a bad name. These people are different. They all give each other a bad name."

"Ready to launch," Chekov reported, switching back to stiff efficiency for the communication with the bridge. "Awaiting clearance."

As the shuttle launched, Reeves relaxed back into his seat and called out to his companion in the main compartment. "Hey, Jonesey, are you asleep yet?"

"Mm? I'm conserving my resources for a stressful engagement, as per the Chief's instructions, any complaints?"

"No. But you're missing a great view up here."

For a few minutes the men were silent, enjoying the spectacle. Chekov was no less aware than the others of the opal glow of clouds and seas below the little craft, but he was familiar enough with the job of piloting to allow a small part of his mind to wander.

The new Security Chief, Larson, had arrived only a fortnight before. The man looked very much the part, stocky, scarred and aggressive, when he presented himself on the bridge to meet his Commanding Officer. Chekov had sympathised with Reeves when his friend had bemoaned the departure of Lieutenant Duckham, the previous Chief, and expressed the opinion that it would be all press-ups and target practice for the next couple of months, by which time Larson would probably have achieved the mythical target of 100% fatalities in his department. "The last thing you want is a Security guy who looks like he wants a fight," Reeves had insisted. His own lounge lizard appearance confirmed that he followed this philosophy as far as possible. "I'm going to wind up with biceps and some Orion spoiling for the chance to wipe the floor with me every time I go in a bar. That's why competent women make such good Security people, Pav. They don't look as if they want to fight and no one sets out to pick a fight with them."

Chekov reached out with a spare hand and punched Reeves' shoulder experimentally. "How are the biceps coming?"

"What?" Reeves jerked back to awareness of the craft around him, and his friend in the next seat.

"Your new chief. How's he treating you?"

"I've been drilling things I never knew you could drill."

"100% within a month?"

"Not funny, Pav."

Chekov paused to consider whether the remark had been in bad taste. No one had been lost from security recently, and except in the immediate aftermath of death or injury, Reeves made as much free use of the graveyard humour of his calling as the next red shirt.

"So, you like Larson?"

"He's good. He's very, very good. I know I won't get killed because he cocked up. I don't say I like him. I'm not sure Security Chiefs can afford to be liked." He grinned across at Chekov. "He's not quite as glamorous as Kirk, but we have to work close in Security. We know our lives depend on each other. And, with Larson, that's a privilege. You can keep the cosmopolitan banter on the bridge. We wear our red shirts with pride."

***

Even before landing, Chekov had laid in the return coordinates ready for a quick turn-round. They had been instructed to land on a broad level area of grass within the gardens of a whitewashed one storey villa. The ensign had complied precisely and now looked out of the large tinted ports at the swarm of children bursting forth from the villa. "Well, they had the sense to keep the children inside while we were landing."

Reeves groaned. "Kids. I never thought Starfleet would have me running school trips. D'you think I can persuade them that my communicator is a phaser and threaten to kill them if they don't shut up and keep still?"

"You could promise the one that's best behaved the chance to pilot the shuttle into the bay," Jones suggested, leaning through the hatch into the cockpit. "Are we ready to let them on board?"

"Yes. You stay here, Reeves, and make sure no one comes through. Jones, search them and send them in, and I'll be the welcoming committee."

"Do I frisk the kids, too?"

"Anyone old enough to make trouble," Chekov suggested.

Four adult couples were ready in the shadow of the shuttle, along with a representative of the Acxis government, clearly recognisable by his sub-military uniform and short, tidy hair. About six children, varying in age from a babe in arms to a couple of stringy teenagers completed the families for the first trip. One lone man stepped forward to meet Chekov as he emerged from the shuttle.

He was not much older than the ensign, and clean shaven, with a mop of thin, unkempt, pale gold hair and lightly tanned skin set off by the clear whites of his eyes, and piercing blue irises. His cheek bones made sharp points beneath the outer corners of his eyes, and his smile was as broad and bright as the sun.

"Well I never!" he exclaimed. "You I know."

Chekov looked behind him instinctively, and was caught in a hug of welcome before he could register that this enthusiastic greeting was not addressed to someone else.

He stood rock still. "I'm afraid I don't..."

"Pavel Chekov! This is delightful."

The other passengers gathered round in an interested huddle. Chekov managed to take a step back and get another look at the man's face, but it still didn't seem at all familiar. "I'm sorry. Have we met?"

"Well no. No, we haven't. I must admit that I haven't had that pleasure until now. But that really doesn't reduce my genuine happiness at seeing you." The man still clasped Chekov's forearm with his right hand and showed no signs of intending to release it. Chekov decided to humour him. The man was obviously unbalanced but the sooner he was aboard, the sooner he would be someone else's problem.

"Jones, let's get everyone aboard."

As the Security man complied, checking methodically through the pockets and baggy jackets of the adults and older children, the stranger continued his assault on the baffled ensign. "Let me introduce myself. My name is Sky." Chekov ran that through his memory as well. It wasn't the sort of name you forgot in a hurry. "And you knew my sister, Harmony. Harmony Beale, I think she was calling herself at the time."

"Oh," Chekov responded weakly. Harmony Beale he remembered. Harmony Beale he was unlikely to forget, all things considered.

***

Loading the asylum seekers went far more smoothly than Chekov had anticipated. Reeves came grinning into the forward compartment, his hands full of knives, an elderly, low powered phaser and a projectile weapon that belonged in a museum. He tumbled them into a locker and snapped it shut. "I promised they'd get them back when they left. So, these people are friends of yours?" He turned to look back to where the fifteen passengers sat, kids huddled excitedly by the ports, adults lounging untidily on the central seats. Chekov felt a strong desire to tell them all to sit up straight. "These people I have never met before in my life."

"But you had something with the blond guy's sister," Reeves insisted.

"She was in Starfleet, for a while. And we just happened to be in some of the same classes. He probably recognised me from a holo."

"And instantly remembered your name?"

"I expect Captain Kirk was courteous enough to tell them who was going to pilot them up to the ship," Chekov suggested coldly. He turned back pointedly to the helm and Reeves fell silent. Baiting Chekov was too good a pastime to resist however, and he soon resumed.

"Harmony Beale, eh? Maybe I should look up her record when we get back."

"Personnel records are confidential, aren't they?" Chekov's voice went from certainty to near panic in six words.

"Security can ask questions that other people can't," Reeves said smugly.

"Well, let me save you the trouble. Beale was admitted to Starfleet because the Shookah were in the middle of a campaign to be recognised as a distinct member of the Federation. She left about six months later, just in time to avoid being - asked to leave. And the Council turned down the Shookah application at about the same time."

"Oh, yeah, I remember now. There was a lot of fuss because they didn't have a home planet. Then they claimed to be a racial group but it turned out that hardly any of them were actually born to Shookah parents. And no one could stand the thought of having them around at official functions," he added as an afterthought. "Quite apart from their antisocial attitudes. Nice friends you have, Pav."

"I have already told you..."

"You never heard from her after she left?"

"No."

An entertaining thought suddenly struck Reeves. "She's not here now, is she? That would be a pleasant surprise for you."

"No, she isn't."

"How come you're so sure? The guy didn't say she wasn't."

The navigator turned and looked at Reeves with long-suffering eyes. "I just know. Can we drop it now?"

"Why were they going to throw her out?"

Chekov failed to respond.

"There's always the files, my friend. I reckon I can persuade Lieutenant Commander Larson that we need all the background we can get on these guys..."

"She didn't fit in. And then... she and a few other cadets booby trapped a turbo lift. It was intended for some senior classmen, but an Admiral turned up at the wrong moment. He wasn't very amused."

"You weren't one of the other cadets, by any chance?"

"Why don't you go back and ask our passengers to fasten their restraints ready for docking?"

Reeves grinned. "A turbo lift, hmm? How did you override the computer? I always thought they were just about tamper proof."

Chekov didn't deign to answer.

"I really will have to look this up. I mean, the security implications..."

"I think the design was modified after the incident."

"Oh." He swung his long legs out into the aisle and stood. "Okay, I'll check they're all tucked in."

Chekov made the final correction to bring the shuttle into the same orbit as the Enterprise, and decelerated so that the bigger ship could catch up with them. Because he was concentrating on the instruments, he only heard Commodore Hooper's voice as he relived the interview the morning after Admiral King's adventure.

"I've dealt with the other cadets who were involved, but I wanted to see you on your own."

Chekov felt sick and stupid, and only his anger with himself exceeded the rage that burnt inside him at what had happened to Harmony Beale.

"Perhaps you'd like to tell me what happened last night. From the beginning."

Hooper's expression was calm, radiating the willingness to give him a fair hearing, but Chekov had reason to doubt whether that impression was genuine.

"It was just a stupid prank, ma'am. We only intended to involve Cadet Simons, and he was forewarned. We did not anticipate anyone else using the lift, but we failed to take sufficient precautions to ensure that no one did."

"Are you suggesting that this episode would be excusable if you had taken more care to carry it out safely?"

"No, ma'am, but..."

"Please, no buts. Whose idea was this reckless violation of regulations?"

"The original idea..."

"Yes? Please don't keep me sitting around here while you indulge your schoolboy ideas of honour."

"I don't think he intended for a moment to put it into operation, but Mister Carver... suggested that it was technically possible."

"Well, we can hardly object to our engineers remarking on the technical feasibility of anything. And who suggested making use of this interesting possibility?"

"I think it occurred to all of us at the same time." He looked desperately at the Commodore. "I'm not trying to cover up for anyone, ma'am, it was just one of those ideas whose moment had come, if you see..."

If the Commodore saw, she concealed it.

"Very well, Beale has been dismissed from Starfleet, Clowes, Morrison and the rest have been busted a grade. Carver, in addition, is assisting our systems experts with some modifications to the turbolift controls. What am I going to do with you?"

Chekov couldn't work out what answer was required. There was no apparent reason why he should be treated any differently from the others, and if Hooper wanted Chekov to take responsibility for what had happened, why had she dealt with everyone else first? As for what he thought of Beale's punishment, Chekov didn't believe for a moment that Hooper hadn't been made aware of that. Maybe that was what this was all about.

"I suppose I'll go down a grade too," he suggested. It felt like the end of the world, but if that was what had been handed out to everyone else...

"You don't wish to draw any extenuating circumstances to my attention?"

"I'm not aware of any, ma'am."

Hooper nodded. Could that have been the right answer all along? "When Miss Beale joined your squad, I believe that she encountered some initial hostility. And your commanding officer informs me that it is largely due to your efforts, and friendship towards the young lady, that the rest of the squad were encouraged to accept her to the extent that they did. I would imagine that you are feeling rather - let down by Beale. I'm torn between wishing to applaud your open mindedness and regretting your naiveté, Cadet. But just in case you're feeling that I have been harsh with her, and that I'm prejudiced against her people, you might like to take a look at this." She slid a letter across the desk, and Chekov picked it up and read it, not knowing what to expect. It was from someone of whom he'd never heard, who claimed to be Harmony's "legal guardian". The writer very much regretted that he felt it necessary to recommend Harmony Beale's withdrawal from Starfleet, and placed the blame for her disappointing performance squarely on the shoulders of one Cadet Pavel Andreievich Chekov, a troublemaker, who was unable to accept that others were more able than himself, and had consequently set out to sabotage the career of a promising young entrant to the service. He put the letter back on the desk, so stunned that he felt nothing at all for the moment.

"I wish I could pretend I had never received that letter. And it won't be held against you. I just think you should know what these people are like. Miss Beale was not dismissed solely on account of this incident, or the others of which you must be aware. Her sponsorship lapses with the failure of the Shookah application to the Federation Council, and frankly, no one else was prepared to take her on. You will stand sixty hours additional guard duty, and you are confined to barracks for one month. Dismissed."

Chekov turned the little vessel neatly and placed her precisely on the shuttle bay deck, wondering if the author of that letter was among his passengers.

***

On the second pick up flight, Chekov had enough to worry about without reliving the trouble Harmony Beale had caused him. The remaining twelve Shookah included a Klingon. He'd emerged from the villa at the last minute, wearing an idiotic grin and hauling four overstuffed cases. Dressed like a Victorian cricketer, in white flannels and a cream sweater, complete with a chest length beard, he gave the impression of someone who, from a height of over two metres, was trying to appear as unthreatening as possible. He helpfully and apologetically shepherded his companions onto the shuttle, assuring Reeves that they would not be carrying weapons, and looking heartbroken when it transpired that they were. Once he sank into a seat, folding himself awkwardly to fit his knees and shoulders into the space available, he was promptly submerged by the Shookah children.

Chekov and the two security men had exchanged disbelieving grimaces and done their best to pretend they transported Klingons every day of their lives. After the final checks, the pilot slid into his seat and heaved a sigh of relief.

"Does the captain know?" Reeves asked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, to indicate the surprise that might otherwise await Kirk.

"He came down and talked to them. I imagine he does."

"Well, I've seen everything now. I'll never be able to take the Klingons seriously again..."

"It's just an act," Jones broke in sharply. "He knew where every weapon they had was. I could tell."

"Be quiet. They'll hear you." Chekov twisted round, suddenly convinced that the Klingon had come forward to the door to the cockpit and was listening in to every word they said. He could see the giant, a couple of rows back, paying no attention at all. And then he raised his head and looked Chekov straight in the eyes.

***

"I gather you know some of these people, Chekov."

The ensign palmed the door of the shuttle shut and turned to face the captain. "Not really, Captain. I used to know the sister of one of them. Some years ago, and not very well." Despite both trips going without hitch, Chekov felt edgy. He'd watched Reeves carry away the confiscated weapons and cast a careful eye over the interior of the transport shuttle, in the half-formed expectation that there would be damage, or that their passengers might have stolen something. Then he'd felt guilty. Other people were prejudiced against the Shookah. He knew better, didn't he?

"That was quite a collection of weapons for a handful of families."

"They're entitled to defend themselves..."

Kirk looked surprised. "Against what? Are you suggesting they're in danger on the Enterprise?"

"They attract hostility. Their children particularly..."

"They invite it by behaving like hooligans."

"That is unfair, Captain. They aren't criminals." He stopped dead. He hadn't meant to speak so sharply, but this was a replay of so many conversations, some of which had ended up with him defending Harmony with his fists.

"I think maybe you should review the security files on these people before you make too many sweeping assumptions, Ensign." Kirk was frowning. "Or maybe our definitions of criminal behaviour are different."

"Once you've decided you don't like someone, you can always find a reason if you look hard enough."

"Are you suggesting I'm prejudiced against them?"

Chekov felt his hands curling up into fists now and forced himself to relax. "That's what it sounds like to me."

Kirk stared at the ensign for a moment and then evidently decided not to react to Chekov's aggressive tone. "Well, let's hope they prove you right. The last thing we want is trouble."

***

"Well, I didn't know if it was restricted fauna, or a weapon." Reeves was making slow progress along the corridor, taking his audience with him. "But Chekov said Exo would like it, so we let him bring it. I really thought he'd cry if we made him leave it behind..."

"Well, a little six year old kid, kicked off the planet and you telling him he couldn't bring his pet, what d'you expect?"

"I meant the father. The kid was all wide eyes, wanting to get his hands on the shuttle controls. I could understand him. But so quiet, all of them. Not still, just silent. Like something out of a horror vid - jinxed kids."

"Doctor McCoy will straighten them out. Where's the dragon now?"

"In Exo. Nice big fireproof cage, a few mice to sauté..."

"Oh, Reeves, you're disgusting." The group turned in to the rec room, their laughter still spilling out into the corridor.

A few moments later, Chekov was emerging from the lift on the level of his quarters, berating himself for letting his mouth run away with him yet again. The captain was right to be wary of any group of ill-assorted civilians aboard his ship, and this lot probably deserved every ounce of suspicion they attracted. He could defend the Shookah from here to Jupiter's moons, but the fact was that it was as much blind prejudice as Kirk's reaction, even if it was favourable. Maybe Harmony hadn't been typical.

"Pavel?"

He stopped. Right. Score one to the captain. Here was one of the Shookah, off the decks they'd been assigned, and looking not lost but purposeful.

"Can I help you to find your way to your quarters?"

She smiled, lighting up her face. He hadn't noticed her before, between the excitement of the dragon, and the Klingon, and the kilo of plastic explosive one of the men had claimed was left over from a fishing expedition.

"I could pick it out of your mind, if that was what I wanted."

That sent an uneasy shiver down his spine, but he chose not to believe her. "Then what do you want?"

"Can we talk somewhere?" Her manner wasn't arch, not suggestive at all, but he felt a strong reluctance to invite her into his cabin. Not because she wasn't attractive, but for another reason he couldn't pinpoint.

"Here?" he suggested.

"You're quite right. He'd be suspicious. But you don't want to talk here. We should go somewhere where these giaour can't hear you cry."

He didn't recognise the term, and then, as if a page had opened in his mind, he did. A giaour, a gentile, a heathen, one of the others. Not one of us. And by implication, this woman considered him to be like herself, just as Harmony had done.

He palmed open the door on a small rec room, one used occasionally for parties or informal seminars. It was usually deserted and he wasn't disappointed now. He stood aside to let her in, and locked the door open. Jardis, his mind answered, as he turned to ask her her name.

She went straight to the servitor in the corner. "Vodka, very cold, no ice. That's right, isn't it?"

"Harmony told you that? And I'm on duty anyway..."

"A small one. I wouldn't encourage you to drink and fly a starship. And you're going to need it."

He knew he was. She was about to tell him that Harmony Beale was dead.

"Come here. This is more difficult." She put the dew-clouded glass in his hand and pushed him down into a seat. Then she walked around behind him and put her hands on either side of his face.

"Pavel?"

It wasn't Jadis anymore, it was Harmony. He opened his mind's eyes and she was standing in front of him, wind blowing torn and filthy clothing, gusting litter and sand round her feet. In her hands she held a tiny bundle that mewed like a cat, and her face was thin, tired, grey with strain. "I don't know if this will ever reach you. I hope it does, even though it will be too late for me, and for everyone here. We ran out of food a couple weeks ago, basic medicines a while before that. Oh, we still have plenty of contraceptives. Isn't that a joke? Some bright spark at the Federation wanted to make sure there wouldn't be any more like little Pavel, here. I called him after you. I hope you don't mind. His mother died, and I don't know who the rest of his family are, if he has any. We had a bad week last week. Fourteen babies, only four mothers still alive. To be honest - this is going to sound surreal. I think I've lost my mind sometimes. I called all seven of the boys Pavel. It's like a prayer, or a charm. Pavel, I keep remembering that when I was desperate, you stood up for me. There's a whole world here that needs someone to stand up for it." She hugged the baby to a chest that hunger had hollowed. Its mewing stilled. He felt grit stinging in his eyes, rasping his cheeks. "I didn't mean to load you with guilt. I just wanted to say goodbye." An explosion reverberated somewhere, shaking the ground under his feet. He couldn't stop himself staggering forward, but when his arms closed on her, she wasn't there.

***

He put his hands flat on the deck, and realised he was on his knees on the rec room floor. Jadis was sitting on the table a few feet away, looking almost as shaken as he felt.

"Youghal Nine," she said before he could ask. "She was killed eighteen months ago, an hour or so after... that."

Youghal Nine. Then there was no point charging to the rescue. There was no one left on Youghal Nine now. Neither native nor aid worker. No one. He let his eyes close again.

"I don't think she meant that you should do anything." Jadis soothed. "Because of you, she could believe that someone might."

"You knew! Couldn't you have told someone?" The cold of the place still bit into him, along with Harmony's despair.

A different voice answered him. "We did, Pavel Andreievich. And do you know what they told us? That the situation was under control."

Chekov looked up at the newcomer. From down on the floor the Klingon seemed to loom impossibly, giddyingly tall.

"Jadis..."

She nodded and slipped past Chekov to the door, leaving him alone with the alien. He didn't see her release the lock but it slid shut behind her. Chekov caught his breath and started to climb to his feet, trying not to rush, not to show that being alone in here with the Klingon bothered him.

"There's no point pretending. There's no need to pretend. I know. I frighten you."

"No..."

"Because I'm a Klingon, because I'm a Shookah, because I'm not behaving the way either of those should. Don't worry, I won't hurt you. Come here."

Chekov took a step back instead.

"Why are you blaming yourself for what happened to her? She chose to go there. The politicians ballsed it up. The damn Klingons blockaded the relief convoys..." He paused. "I'm not a Klingon, Pavel. You're not a human. You are one of us. Harmony knew it. We've been waiting for you..."

"I'm not a Shookah!"

"You're very good at denying what you are, aren't you? Not frightened of me, not frightened of what you might do yourself, that you'll let someone down, not lonely, not worried they'll find out what you really are..."

"What am I really?" He braced up.

"I don't know yet. Harmony Beale thought it was something special. And she was pretty special herself. I'll tell you when I find out. Now, come here."

"You can read my mind, and I can't read yours..."

"Yes, you can. You just need to tune in. Come here."

The ensign didn't move, but he'd underestimated the Klingon's reach. He was pulled into a hug that made him feel as slight as thistledown.

"...overload."

He opened his eyes warily, to find the Klingon sitting on the floor beside him, massive arm circling his shoulders, offering him the glass of vodka.

"Klingon and human brains work on different protocols. You switched off while you dealt with the overload. It's quite common the first few times."

"Mmmm." He moved as little as he could to break the contact.

"What's my name?"

"Nede?"

"How many fingers?" The Klingon's hands were behind his back.

"Four?"

"Attaboy."

"Did Harmony... did she starve to death?"

"Well, d'you want the official version, or..."

"What?"

"The Federation Relief Agency letter to her parents claimed she was killed instantly by a land mine. In fact we know she lay bleeding to death for two days in a crater. But who believes a Shookah?"

"Then someone survived to tell you? I thought no one..."

"Pavel, we didn't have to be there. We knew. We knew all the time."

"On another planet? In another system?"

"Why not?"

"Then why didn't she ever..."

"Use it to contact you? Maybe you didn't want her to."

Chekov thought back, to the terror of realising that walls, doors, distance and silence made no difference between himself and Harmony. At his anger when she used the trick to cheat or gain an advantage... Right. Maybe he hadn't wanted her to.

"You can all do this?"

"That's what makes us Shookah."

"If you can do that..."

"You're thinking reliable, instantaneous communication throughout the galaxy? Forget it."

"Why?"

"We're the only ones who can do it. And reliable we aren't, in case you hadn't noticed. Oh, with odd exceptions like yourself. But then, are you really so reliable?"

***

When Nede had gone, Chekov remained sat on the floor, staring blankly at the wall, trying not to think about what he ought to do next. He knew, of course. As long as these people remained on board, as long as they were able to reach into his mind at will, he shouldn't be on duty. But he couldn't bring himself to swallow his pride and go tell the captain that. And he had no proof, after all, that they intended any harm, either to him or the ship. Perhaps if he just kept a low profile...

"Ensign?"

Lieutenant Commander Larson was stood in the doorway, with a hand on either side of the frame. Behind him, Chekov could see another couple of red shirts. He scrambled to his feet.

"I heard a couple of our passengers were on this deck?"

"They've gone back to their quarters, sir."

Larson raised one hand to dismiss his escort, and came into the room. "You knew they aren't allowed on this deck?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why didn't you call for assistance, if they weren't willing to leave?"

"I didn't... I didn't ask them to leave." He squared up for a reprimand, but it didn't come.

"I was intending to have a word with the captain about you." Larson sat down on one of the low chairs and swung one leg over the other. Chekov remained frozen to attention, trying to work out what this was about. As Chief of Security, apart from the obvious, Larson had responsibility for unarmed combat training, and safety drills. Neither impacted on Chekov's work. And his own training schedule was up to date - just.

"I'm thinking of asking for a temporary transfer for you to my section." A slow smile spread across the Chief's face at Chekov's expression. "Why do people always go white as a sheet when I say that? Don't you like the idea, Ensign?"

"I'm a navigator."

"And a good one. Better than good. Which is a waste."

"Sir?"

"Well, what difference does it make whether you or one of your merely adequate colleagues is on duty? We don't get anywhere any sooner. We don't get lost any less often. The extra five percent or whatever that you put into the job doesn't yield any additional output."

"In combat, or..."

"But that's weapons, not navigation. And the fact that you and Mister Sulu can read each other's minds." Chekov breathed in sharply, but Larson appeared not to notice. "The thing about Security is that the extra five percent will always make a difference."

"But I wouldn't be any good at it."

"Really?"

"I'm not particularly good at unarmed combat, or hand weapons."

"Neither am I. And you could be better. I'll schedule you some extra classes. I'll level with you. I've been through the records of everyone on this ship. I need to know how people react in a crisis, what skills they have that aren't obvious from the job they do, who gets on with who, that sort of thing. And how they fit together as a team. Then I have to look at my own team, and make sure that works. At the moment it doesn't. There's a piece missing, and you're it. It's not just sharp shooting and judo, you see. There's more to Security than that. This cuts both ways, of course. You need the experience, and I need you. So I'll talk to the captain, and if he asks you, you'll say you'd jump at the chance, won't you?"

"Commander, I don't want to transfer to Security."

"I see."

"I don't think I have the aptitude, and I - I'm always the one who gets caught, or shot, or blown up. In a red shirt I'd just get blown up sooner."

"Well, there you are then. Two excellent reasons to transfer. First, I'll teach you to look after yourself, and second, you won't be too cocky. Agreed? Oh, and I wasn't going to mention the third reason, but you don't want me to report this morning's - oversight - with your Shookah pals, do you?"

Chekov was silent.

"Or the fact that you've been drinking on duty." Larson gave him a moment to reconsider. "Oh, boy, you do like to make it hard on yourself, don't you? We'll talk again, shall we? I'll let you know about the extra classes."

Chapter 2

The dragon was sitting on its clutch of five eggs, its little black eyes beady and intense. Since laying it had lost condition, along with its appetite, and its coat had taken on a tired, papery quality. Its owner stood by the open door of its cage, offering it pieces of raw chicken. It hissed at him occasionally and eventually turned its back.

"Don't worry. She's just broody. She hasn't got the intelligence to be nice to you and look after her eggs at the same time. She's okay. I'll keep an eye on her." Lieutenant Jenny Secombe gently shut the door. She had visions of the nervous mother suddenly taking offence and flying out to give the laboratory another scorching. The captain hadn't been too pleased with the damage yesterday. The big man hooked his fingers through the mesh and nodded sadly. "You're right. I'll leave her to it."

Jenny waited until he'd stood there for another couple of minutes. "I really think she'd be better off on her own."

"Yeah. You'll let me know, won't you, if anything happens?"

"Straight away. And I don't mean you shouldn't visit her from time to time. She might well start to miss you. But from the rate the embryos are developing, it'll be around ten days before I expect anything. And I wouldn't hope for too much. I've never come across dragons before. I'm amazed the eggs are fertile, but if she doesn't know how to keep the temperature and humidity right, well, I certainly don't."

***

"State desired subject area."

"Youghal Nine. Recent history."

"Please state whether general background information is required, or give detailed parameters."

"Harmony Beale. Aid worker." He began to work out the approximate date of her death, but the computer beeped readiness. A short news report, illustrated with a few library shots of Youghal Nine in its better days, and again in its death throes, stated baldly that six Federation medical and social relief workers had been killed by a land mine. The names were given. It occurred to Chekov that he had read this at the time, or skimmed over it, without noticing.

"Is that all?"

The screen scrolled on to a dry report of the costs of the entire failed relief operation, to which was appended a list of names of casualties, and a recommendation that all involved should be posthumously awarded various commendations.

"Didn't you believe us?"

Chekov swivelled round in the library chair and found himself looking up at Jadis. She'd swapped her previous outfit for Starfleet coveralls and her tawny blonde hair was pulled back into a pony tail. She almost looked as if she belonged there. "I wanted to know it all." He turned back and hit the off button.

"It wouldn't have helped Harmony if you'd read it at the time."

"I know. It just feels as if I couldn't be bothered." He stood up, and realised that Jadis was effectively blocking his way out. "Excuse me." He suddenly wanted very much to be alone.

***

As his cabin door closed on the rest of the ship, and its cargo of dragons and nightmares, Chekov kicked off his boots and flopped on his bunk. Why, out of his whole blameless, uncomplicated past, had fate selected this one incident for resurrection?

He'd been on the Enterprise for six months exactly. Long enough to learn the ropes, earn a little respect - or was he fooling himself? He still felt like everyone's kid brother sometimes. Allowed to do anything so long as it was perfectly safe, left alone to mind the house but knowing that the neighbours had been asked to keep an eye on him. And it was all so ridiculous. Being an only child, he'd never got used to being the baby at home. His parents had belonged to the comfortable orthodoxy which held that infants were only small adults who required more than the average amount of sleep and preferred milk to vodka. No one had ever assumed he couldn't do anything. Taking that comforting faith in himself to Starfleet, he'd suddenly confronted a world where cadets were judged immature, undeveloped, and quite possibly unhinged. As he became more senior, reconciling what he knew he could do with what the system allowed seemed to involve an ever more delicate balancing act. And he knew Kirk thought him overconfident.

On his half-anniversary, he paused to review events so far and wasn't so much concerned with his own inadequacies as with the fundamental injustice of the universe. This was understandable, given the things that fortune had hurled at him over the previous six months. They had been phenomena of a type that made the victims feel their inner resources were academic. Things like planet-eating machines, Greek deities, and power mad computers. Things like James T. Kirk.

There was an awful inevitability about Kirk. Busy admiring the man from afar, determined to serve under him the moment he'd earned his commission, it had never occurred to Chekov that he might have been happier under a less stellar commanding officer. The trouble was, that it was never going to make any difference to Kirk whether Chekov was there or not. The man would triumph, somehow, if his ship was crewed by monkeys. It wasn't just that Kirk did anything interesting that needed doing himself - although as a rule he did. It wasn't that he neglected the careers and ambitions of his crew. On the whole, such complaints were unjustified, although not unheard of. It was the crushing knowledge that Kirk would save the day every time.

To those close enough to know how much Kirk relied on his officers to support him, or those who were simply happy to serve on a ship that did interesting things and then came back, none of this was a problem. They were grateful that they could do their jobs, earn a little recognition among their fellow professionals and be part of the great adventure. It really only became a difficulty if you were an insignificant ensign who wanted to have a go at saving the universe yourself. Now and then.

And now the Shookah. And he'd dared to accuse James T Kirk of prejudice. Pavel Chekov pulled his pillow over his face and groaned. And as if that wasn't enough, Larson wanted to kill him.

It was going to be one of those nights which never end.

***

"How are our visitors getting along?" Kirk asked McCoy in passing outside the rec room. McCoy just glowered, and Kirk raised an enquiring eyebrow. "Anything particular to report?"

"I've updated the kids' vaccinations and given them all a general check up. One or two needed minor things seeing to." He shrugged and admitted grudgingly, "I suppose they weren't in worse shape than most youngsters that age. They seem behind in language, social skills. The parents say that Standard's their first language, but they behave as if they aren't used to using it. They don't seem to talk much amongst themselves... Maybe they're shy, or it's just a cultural difference. Anyhow, I've finished with them. That big Klingon rounded them up twenty minutes ago. He said something about organising a football match in the gym..."

"Well, that sounds like a sensible enough suggestion."

McCoy grinned. "Why don't you volunteer to referee, Jim? Do your cruise liner captain stuff."

Kirk's only response was a sour grimace, but on reflection he decided it would be a good idea to put in an appearance. The Shookah were behaving themselves. A little positive feedback might encourage them to continue in the same vein.

***

The noise from the gym struck him the moment the lift doors opened, but it sounded like good-natured cheering. A few crewmen loitering by the entrance parted to let the captain through. "Standing room only, sir," a fresh-faced engineering ensign explained. By a sort of disciplined sixth sense, the spectators appeared to know without turning that he was there. A pathway cleared to the edge of the martial arts area. The small arena was edged by a tight wall of bodies and in the centre of the mat one of Larson's best fighters was circling the massive Klingon. The Shookah's supporters were clustered behind him, faces bright and full of good natured partisanship. Unlike his own crew, they were making no sound at all. The Enterprise people were cheerfully egging Ensign Ameche on, making helpful suggestions and responding with exaggerated glee or despair to the varying fortunes of their favourite. Kirk reckoned that Nede outweighed Ameche by as much again, but appeared to have nothing much else in his favour. He prayed silently that Ameche would have the tact not to trounce the Klingon too quickly.

As there was no immediate problem at that end of the gym, he turned away and taking the path of least resistance through the crush, found himself face to face with Ensign Chekov. The navigator was helping himself to one of the heavy white cotton jackets that did general duty for half a dozen traditions of martial arts, and he ducked away from Kirk without saying anything, pulling a white belt tight round his waist. Kirk reached out a hand and placed it firmly on the young man's shoulder, halting his flight. "Do you have an opponent?"

"Uh, no, sir. I'm booked for a class with Lieutenant Greene in fifteen minutes..."

"I don't suppose she'll mind waiting for you. Hang on and I'll join you." Kirk spun off into the changing area, leaving Chekov standing in the middle of the gym, looking as if he'd just been invited to his own funeral. That Kirk intended this gesture as a peace offering was obvious enough, but after a disturbed night the last thing Chekov wanted was to be soundly beaten by his captain. He considered pleading an injury, but recognised that he'd left it too late.

Kirk reappeared and smiling broadly, led the way to one of the practice areas. Chekov wondered whether, if it weren't for the howls of the spectators to the main event, his thumping heart would have been audible throughout the gym. He hated unarmed combat, in any of its myriad forms. If his opponents were keenly competitive, as was the norm in Starfleet, the sensation of being caught up in a blood sport, with himself as the prey, nauseated him. If they were merely treating it as a duty, as Greene would be once this was over, he disliked being outthought and manipulated. The captain was probably going to be the worst combination of both. At least today everyone had something more interesting to watch than an ensign being tossed around like a sack of beans.

Kirk bowed briefly and Chekov followed his example and moved to the centre of the mat. Fortunately the traditions of this particular system of combat skills included a series of coordinated warm-up exercises that allowed him to recover a little self-possession before actual warfare commenced.

Kirk made the first move, chiefly because Chekov appeared to be content to bide his time and circle defensively almost indefinitely. Chekov blocked it automatically, and was caught out by an unexpected follow-through. He recovered by the skin of his teeth. Kirk backed off while Chekov retreated to his own corner, and looked up to find that Sky was watching him.

/Kirk favours his left side. Use an attack that comes in from the right./

The distraction of hearing Sky's voice inside his head was enough to give Kirk the opening he needed. Chekov found himself flat on his back, pinned down by the captain's full weight.

Kirk rolled aside and gained his feet, offering his opponent a hand to get up. Chekov's anger at Sky's interference, combined with his earlier fury at Kirk's opinions of the Shookah, surged uncontrollably for a moment. He ignored the proffered hand and stalked back to his place.

/Let me take control of your body. I can beat him easily./

Kirk scowled. Fine, Chekov was annoyed with him, but that was no excuse for a display of petulant bad manners. Perhaps this idea had been a mistake, but he'd have to see it through now. He lunged for his opponent. Chekov side-stepped him and caught him off-balance. Kirk let him think he had the advantage, confidently expecting to dump him on the mat again. But Chekov did something that Kirk couldn't follow and it was Kirk who hit the mat, sufficiently surprised to land badly with a jarring shock. He sat up with a gasping intake of breath and realised that they had an audience. The other match was evidently over and judging by Ameche's expression of bemused irritation it hadn't gone as Kirk expected. The victor, looking as fresh as if he'd just arrived in the gym, was standing at the side of the practice mat. Beside him, the slight, blond Sky looked like a child. The rest of the crowd were drifting over to see what was happening and Jadis stepped in between Nede and Sky. She draped her arms round Sky's shoulders and Nede's waist, her dark eyes resting languorously on the discomforted captain. Kirk wondered if he should plead injury, but Chekov was standing ready for the next bout with such a look of dogged bad-temper that Kirk promptly trashed any idea of letting the ensign think he'd beaten him.

He rolled smoothly to his feet and made a feint which Chekov ignored. Sky couldn't tell what Kirk was thinking, but the Shookah was a master, and once he'd forced aside Chekov's rather preoccupied consciousness, Kirk was no match for him. He was subtle enough not to overdo it, but Kirk found himself blocked again and again. In the end he became impatient and made the mistake that Sky was waiting for. The Shookah jumped on the opportunity and carried it through to land Chekov squarely across Kirk's chest.

Then something bizarre happened. Sky's presence in Chekov's mind was gone, and instead he was seeing Kirk through the Shookah woman's eyes. Jadis stood on the sidelines, perceiving the captain in ways that would never normally occur to Chekov.

/Hold still./

Her thoughts were as seductive as her eyes. Her reaction to Kirk was washing back to him in disorientating waves, more intense than anything he'd ever experienced on his own behalf. The ensign felt his skin flush and his pulse quicken before he scrambled away from the captain, his face showing every particle of the disquiet and anger he felt.

"Best of three falls, was it?" Nede asked composedly. "It seems that Shookah are good for some things after all."

"I'm not a Shookah!" Chekov spat indignantly. For the moment, Jadis and all her kind repelled him. Kirk pulled himself up to sit on the mat, staring at the ensign. He couldn't quite credit the intense tremor of emotion that had ripped through Chekov before he had pulled away. He had the uncomfortable feeling that if there hadn't been witnesses the navigator would have hit him.

Chekov felt Sky's presence like cool fingers in his mind.

/Offer him a hand up. You're breaking the rules. Making a spectacle of yourself. Just like a Shookah./

His rage evaporated as he turned and walked back to the changing area, grabbed his uniform in an untidy bundle and returned barefoot and sweaty to his cabin.

***

Kirk turned the shower up and shrugged his shoulders a few times under the steamy torrent, reviewing his defeat at Chekov's hands. He'd watched Chekov fight a few times, even if he hadn't actually fought the ensign himself, and Chekov had done nothing technically outstanding this time, nothing beyond what Kirk knew him to be capable of. He'd quite simply seemed to pull it all together, to know what to do at every stage. Perhaps it was just anger giving an extra boost to his reactions. He wasn't sure which surprised him more, that or Ameche going down to the clumsy and ill-disciplined Shookah. Even if Nede was a renegade Klingon, with fighting skills bred into him over generations, he was still a shambling mess. The captain turned to let the water rinse his face, then switched the shower off and put out a hand for his towel. What was the matter with Chekov, anyway? The Shookah, it was true, had been less trouble than Kirk had anticipated, but they had hardly done anything to earn the indignant loyalty that Chekov seemed to feel for them one moment, only to deny any relationship with them the next.

He gave his hair a final bad-tempered rub and began to dress. Through the flimsy partitions of the changing area, he heard Lieutenant Greene's voice raised in annoyance. "Well, where's he gone? I'm supposed to be giving him a class."

***

Kirk sat down with his cup of coffee and watched Spock methodically devouring his lunch for a couple of minutes.

"Did you need me for something?" Spock inquired as he cleared the plate.

"How much do we know about these Shookah, Spock?"

"Remarkably little, Captain."

"But they must have told someone something about themselves, to support their application to join the Federation in their own right."

"Indeed they must. But it appears that afterwards they found some way to wipe the public data banks of all the information they had provided. Obviously, some hard copy remained, but it is partial at best."

Kirk made no attempt to conceal his horror at what Spock so calmly reported. "How could they do that?"

"There are a small number of exceptionally highly qualified and inventive computer specialists among them. You shouldn't judge them entirely by the examples you see here. In addition to the public facilities, Starfleet records have also been wiped of all references to the Shookah. One suspects that there are sympathisers, if not actual members, within Starfleet."

"We got some information when we first took them on board..."

"As I suggested, a partial reconstruction has been attempted."

"This is appalling, Spock. If they can do this..."

"It is certainly alarming, both as an indication of their abilities, and in what it says about their attitude to information."

Kirk looked at Spock carefully. He seemed as uninvolved as ever, but the captain guessed that his even tone covered a deep moral revulsion.

"Do we know what makes someone a Shookah? I mean, it can't be simple family succession, if they have Klingons and humans."

"Also Andorians and Vulcans, Captain."

"Oh."

"It appears that one is adopted into the grouping by general consent. And they consider that Mister Chekov is one of them."

"Yes, I was just going to come on to that. You don't have any idea why?"

"I haven't been able to trace any common factors between the ensign and those members of the group whom we have aboard at the moment. Tracing other links is difficult, given the loss of records. However..."

"Yes?"

"Had there been any major references to the Shookah on Mister Chekov's file, they would have been detected and wiped, along with all other references in the system. There was one incident. Whoever recorded it obviously didn't consider it of any importance, or didn't want it to be picked up, and it wasn't cross-referenced. It might be worth looking at that, and perhaps asking Chekov himself if he can throw any light on..."

"He seems to be so completely unreasonable where these people are concerned."

"He resents the fact that you are prejudiced against them, certainly. An overreaction, perhaps, but not unreasonable."

"I just had a friendly bout of..."

"And the ensign beat you."

"How did you know that?"

"I believe it is known as the grapevine, Jim. Ensign Ameche's defeat at the hands of the Klingon, Nede, is also arousing comment. The general opinion is that both of them must have cheated."

"He didn't cheat."

"I was not one of those who thought that he had."

Kirk tossed back the rest of his coffee. "Look, transfer whatever you found on Chekov's file to my workstation. Tell him I want to see him in an hour's time in briefing room A. Tell McCoy the same, and be there yourself. I'm depending on you to make sure we all keep our tempers with each other."

***

Chekov reported reluctantly to the briefing room in response to the captain's summons, trying to work out what Kirk might want to see him for. He hadn't done anything obviously wrong in trouncing Kirk in the gym, and he knew Kirk well enough to know that he wouldn't bear a grudge for what had at least looked like a fair defeat. And their disagreement over the Shookah had just been an off-duty difference of opinion. He hadn't even been really rude, just maybe a little too vehement. He checked that he wasn't early and signalled his arrival. The door slid open immediately.

At first, Chekov thought that Kirk was alone in the briefing room, then he noticed Mister Spock working quietly at a computer terminal. The captain had a couple of sheets of computer printout before him, and a rather preoccupied expression which changed to one of irritation when he saw the ensign.

"Why didn't you tell me just how much experience you've had with these Shookah? This was a bit more than a casual acquaintance with someone's sister. Or were you aware that the files had been wiped and hoping I wouldn't find out about it?"

For a moment, Chekov wasn't sure whether he was being accused of computer sabotage or something rather less serious.

"I knew one Shookah very briefly three years ago, Captain. I didn't think that made me an expert on the subject."

As he said this, McCoy came into the briefing room and sat down next to Kirk, while Spock finished whatever he was doing and swung his chair round so that he too was seated at the conference table opposite Chekov. The effect was disconcertingly formal. Kirk's expression hardened. "These people are widely considered to be dangerously self-interested, if not actually hostile. Anything you know about them could be useful."

Chekov felt again the comforting embrace he'd received from the Klingon, the steady, calming effect of Sky in his mind. What Jadis had done had been a mistake. She hadn't known he couldn't cope with it... "That isn't my experience of them, Captain. I didn't realise it was anyone else's."

Kirk snorted derisively. "Perhaps this Harmony Beale is untypical." He pushed the printout across the table towards Chekov, who read it upside down without turning it. Something about the way he did that struck Kirk as insolent, but he bit down on the urge to reprimand an officer for reading upside down in a manner injurious to the discipline of the service. The printout was the letter Commodore Hooper had discussed with Chekov all those years ago. Hooper hadn't taken the matter any further, and the file was annotated No action required, but Kirk appeared disposed to make something of it. "She seems to have gotten you into trouble..."

McCoy was even then pointing out that the letter hadn't been taken much notice of when it was received, and was anyway well in line with the renowned Shookah trait of blaming anybody and everybody for Shookah problems, regardless of the obvious innocence of their target. "And Miss Beale must be an exceptional example of virtuous vulnerability if Chekov was supposed to be such a disastrous influence," the doctor finished sarcastically.

Chekov felt a surge of anger, at McCoy's accustomed taunting, but more at the callousness of their discussion of Harmony.

Kirk pulled the printout back. "Is Nede their leader?"

"I think they would follow him, in a crisis."

"He's implied, more than once, that you're one of them. What do you have to do to be a Shookah?"

"I'm not."

"But if you were?"

"As far as they're concerned, you either are, or you aren't. For some reason they've decided I am."

"Not because of your relationship with Miss Beale?"

"I didn't have a... relationship with Miss Beale. And I don't think you can become a Shookah by marriage, if that's what you mean."

"The child of Shookah parents is a Shookah?"

"I don't know. Why don't you ask them instead of me? I don't know and I don't want to know."

Kirk's face flashed anger at the ensign's obdurate tone, and Spock smoothly stepped in to change the subject. "I haven't been able to trace what happened to Miss Beale, after she left Starfleet. Are you aware..."

"She made the sort of selfish career choices you'd expect of a Shookah. She was killed while doing relief work with children at a refugee camp on Youghal Nine. If you don't believe me, it was reported in the updates. They didn't quite get round to mentioning that she was a Shookah, of course."

"There is no reason why they should have been aware of it," Spock pointed out.

"I know, but I can't help believing they'd have found out if she'd done something wrong."

Kirk sighed. "Chekov, sit down."

The ensign pulled out a seat and did as he was told.

"Maybe I'm being unreasonable, and I'll try to bear that in mind, but these people are generally regarded as trouble, they appear to be capable of manipulating Starfleet and Federation systems to suit themselves. Frankly, they have yet to do you any favours, and leaving aside Miss Beale's... undoubtedly unselfish example in choosing to work in such a dangerous field, I am deeply concerned about taking a group of them into a possibly hazardous situation. Do you have any reason to suppose that they represent a danger to this ship?"

"Captain, I don't know these people. They're not a danger just because they're Shookah, as far as I know."

"But the fact that they're a bunch of trouble makers who were thrown off one ship and then expect another to give them a free ride home is probably an adequate reason for worrying about them?"

"Yes, sir," Chekov acquiesced.

"Okay. So I'm worried about them, and since you seem to get on better with them than anyone else on board, I'd like you to keep an eye on them for me. And make sure I hear anything that I should know. Even if you only suspect it might mean trouble. Understood?"

"If they think I'm spying on them, they won't..."

"Then don't let them think it. Dismissed."

Chapter 3

"Ensign!"

Chekov stopped dead in the middle of the corridor, and Larson emerged from the door to the security section, laid a hand on the Russian's shoulder and steered him inside. "You did get my message? You were aware that I arranged a class for you with Greene? Or did you think that because you trounced our respected leader, I'd change my mind?"

"No, sir. I... I forgot. I'll apologise to Lieutenant Greene..."

"Of course you will. And..." Under Larson's guidance, Chekov found himself in the squad room, where half a dozen ensigns turned startled faces towards the door. "Ameche? You're not otherwise occupied, are you?"

"Just doing routine maintenance, Chief. I'm ahead of schedule."

"Excellent. Take Mister Chekov up to the gym, will you. And under the guise of giving him some unarmed combat coaching, administer a bloody good hiding. Just stop short of upsetting our good Doctor McCoy, if you can. Okay?"

"Sir." Ameche didn't bat an eyelid. He stowed whatever he was doing in a locker, logged off on the computer and gestured to the door. "After you."

Chekov swallowed and turned back into the passageway. This was a joke, he told himself, a piece of horseplay. If he reacted in any way, he'd just be falling into Larson's trap.

"What did you do to annoy the Chief?"

"I didn't turn up for a class he arranged."

Ameche overtook him and turned round to walk backwards, his thick black eyebrows drawn together in a puzzled frown. "For this I'm supposed to pulp you? Normally I only deal with guys who mess with the Chief's women."

"Very funny."

"You think he doesn't mean it? Believe me, he means it. He hates people letting him down."

"I didn't let him down. It was just a mistake."

***

"Are you going to be okay?" Ameche asked, twenty minutes later.

Chekov nodded, and stuck his head back under the shower. "Please, let me die in peace." He felt as if he'd been picked up and thrown around by a large and over-boisterous dog.

"Maybe I should take you along to sick bay."

"But your Chief said..."

"He didn't mean it."

"He didn't mean you should beat me up?" It was impossible to hold a grudge against Ameche, even while you were throbbing from his mishandling. He looked so sheepish about it, only-obeying-orders personified.

"He didn't mean you shouldn't get first aid if you need it. He's just fed up with you."

Chekov switched the shower off and picked up a towel. When he winced at the pain of raising his arms to dry his hair, Ameche snatched it from him and towelled the excess water off.

"He didn't even know I existed before yesterday. How can he be fed up with me? Can you get my back too?"

Ameche dabbed carefully at the worst of the bruises.

"He doesn't like the length of your hair, or the fact that you came straight out of the Academy onto the bridge, or the way the captain takes you on landing parties... But then he doesn't like anything about the way the captain organises landing parties..."

"Are you saying Security spends its whole time sitting around criticising everyone else on the ship?"

"Oh, no. Only you and the captain."

"Thank you. It's nice to be in good company."

"And Reeves used to put in a good word for you."

"Used to?"

"The Chief doesn't like being contradicted."

"He said he wanted me to transfer to Security."

"Just so he can kill you legally. He's allowed to kill his own people. If he kills anyone else it looks like he's not doing his job properly." Ameche picked Chekov's uniform out of the locker to save him stretching.

"Thank you." He began the delicate task of pulling his clothes on over his bruises while Ameche finished drying himself.

"What's been going on?"

Sky, and a couple of the other Shookah men filled the double doorway into the gym.

"Nothing."

"We heard you were being given a going over."

Ameche glanced across at Chekov. "You didn't yell that loud."

Chekov frowned. "Someone must have come in without us noticing. It was just a class, thank you. I appreciate you coming to my assistance, but I don't need any help."

One of them, the dragon's owner, wandered over. "You've got some nasty bruises there," he said conversationally. "Would you like us to even the score?" He couldn't quite pull off the mobster impression, but the cold smile in Sky's eyes was perfectly convincing. Chekov could easily imagine him directing his two colleagues while they took Ameche apart.

Ameche hurriedly turned to grab his clothes, as if underwear would give him some protection against the three of them. The dragon's owner laid hold of one of his arms, and the third member of the group, whose name Chekov now registered as Dunitz, moved in to secure the other. Ameche stood quite still and Chekov could imagine that he was assessing his chances against the three, in a room with a wet floor and full of hard edges. The unknown, of course, being whether or not Chekov was on his side. The security man's doubt hurt, almost physically.

Chekov stood up. "Get out of here, all of you." He wasn't sure what he'd expected, but when Dunitz slammed a fist into Ameche's stomach it came as a sickening surprise. Chekov cursed himself for forgetting that he could read them as easily as they read him. "Stop this now!"

"Hit the panic button!" Ameche pulled in a sobbing gasp of breath to replace what it had cost to shout that, just in time to have it forced out of him again by Dunitz. Chekov abandoned his shirt to come to his former assailant's aid, but Sky caught and held him. He struggled fruitlessly against the smaller man's strength, while Ameche was forced down onto the floor and mercilessly thrashed.

"I don't think he'll bother you again," Sky pronounced eventually, releasing Chekov. The ensign slammed his fist down on the intercom. "Security to the gym. Now."

"It's a bit late. We've finished."

Ignoring them, the Russian knelt down to see if Ameche was conscious. He was moaning loudly enough, and the way blood was pumping from his nose, it was at least certain that his pulse was respectable.

"Mother of God, Chekov, I'm sorry I ever laid eyes on you, let alone hands. Why didn't you damn well call for help?"

"I couldn't. He was holding me." He looked round at the guilty party, but the Shookah had clearly considered the time ripe for a strategic withdrawal. The three of them had vanished.

"He's smaller than you, for God's sake. He can't weigh more than sixty kilos. You could have dragged him across the floor if he wouldn't let go. Or didn't you want to?"

"I was doing everything I could." He reached for a towel and helped Ameche to sit up, so that at least he wouldn't drown in his own blood.

"What's the matter?" Reeves skidded on the blood slicked floor and came to a halt by his injured colleague. "Great Bird, Ameche. You were supposed to beat up on him."

Chekov got back to his feet as Larson, following closely behind, regarded the unexpected scene with distaste. "You need a medical team, not security. Get this blood cleared up, Reeves."

"Yes, Chief."

"Explanation, Mister Ameche?"

"Three of the Shookah decided they wanted a fight."

"The Klingon again?"

"Not this time, Chief."

"And the two of you couldn't handle them?"

"I'm not sure Chekov was really trying." Ameche spat out a mouthful of blood.

Larson turned to stare down at Chekov. "You didn't, by any chance, encourage your friends to do this, did you?"

"No, sir. I did what I could to stop them. They restrained me."

"Two of them restrained you while the other one did this to Ameche? Or one very large one? Do elucidate. You see, I find it a little hard to believe that you could defeat the captain this morning and have turned back into such a shrinking violet this afternoon."

When Chekov failed to answer, Larson pulled the ensign round and looked at the deep red prints of Sky's fingers on his upper arms, where he'd struggled against them to try and help Ameche. "Hmm. I think you're wrong, Ameche. I think he was trying. Shame he didn't know enough to do it effectively. Which three of them, Mister Chekov?"

"Sky, the short, blond one. The one who brought the dragon on board. And the other is called Dunitz."

"Yes, I know the three you mean." He stepped aside to let Reeves wipe up the blood under his feet. "Which one put those marks on you?"

"Sky."

"Why would they turn on Ameche here? They haven't been that much trouble up until now. Why are you so special?"

"They think I'm one of them. They were defending one of their own."

Larson nodded, clearly able to sympathise with that idea. "And are you?"

"No, Commander."

"Go to sick bay with Ameche. The captain will want a report on this. Make sure it's on his screen within the hour."

"Do I say what Ameche and I were doing here?" He didn't know until he'd said it that he meant it to be insolent. There was something satisfying about turning the tables on Larson.

Larson smiled easily. "Of course you do, Ensign. Of course you do."

***

The ensign was glad when twelve hundred hours rolled round and he was back on duty. Surely he was safe from both the Shookah and Larson on the bridge. But his relief was short lived. Someone had mislaid a load of reports, and Spock unerringly homed in on the under-occupied navigator and sent him off to engineering to round them up.

"So now we know why you never get your hair cut."

Chekov stopped dead at the sound of Engineer Schulz's voice. A small gaggle of crew, mostly engineers, were congregated round a small computer screen in the mess room, watching a recording of something. The crowd was two or three deep, and Schulz had obviously lost interest in peering over his colleagues' shoulders. Ensign Jones turned to see what the distraction was, and tried to pull Schulz back into the audience.

"Schulz, we also know he took the captain best of three this morning. You want to start a fight?"

"He cheated." Schulz was over six feet tall, and didn't see why anyone with that much advantage should ever have to lose anything. Chekov beating Kirk offended his sense of natural justice. "Didn't you, Chekov? Shookah always cheat. They don't play unless they know the game's rigged. Isn't that right, Mister Chekov?"

"I wouldn't know," Chekov replied curtly. His faith in Shookah fair play had been a little dented by Ameche's ordeal.

"What d'you mean, you wouldn't know? I heard your idea of a level field is four of you against one of us. Sounds pretty clear cut to me."

The rest of the group was beginning to turn round now, and Jones, still trying to keep the peace, opted for dialogue. "What happened, Chekov? Did the Shookah really beat Ameche up?"

Chekov swallowed. "Yes."

"And you didn't help him?" Schulz demanded.

"I tried. Do you want to see the bruises?"

"But why did they do it? Ameche hadn't done anything to them. Why do they go round making trouble?"

"Because you expect them to."

"Oh, yeah, the poor little misunderstood Shookah. So why do you mix with them?"

"I don't." Chekov picked up the pile of report cassettes he'd come in for and turned to leave. Schultz stopped him with a hand on his chest.

"Come on, are you one or aren't you?"

"I don't know what you mean. One of what?"

"A Klingon-loving, thieving, lying, cheating..."

As one man the crowd round the screen laid hands on Schulz and dragged him away before Chekov could hit him. Jones and Chekov were left standing alone in the mess room.

"They could just as easily have decided to help him give you a hiding," Jones pointed out judiciously.

Chekov sighed. "Why? What have the Shookah done to anyone on this ship?"

"Well, for a start, there's the Klingon. They aren't exactly everyone's favourite species. I don't know why the captain doesn't bang him up in the brig. They're the enemy, for God's sake. Then there's the fact that he beat Ameche, and quite a few people lost money on it. If you hadn't beaten the captain before anyone could set up a book, you wouldn't have been flavour of the month either. The whole security section's on double shifts keeping an eye on our passengers, and that's affecting people who have to cover for us on defence. And everybody knows someone who knows someone who's had trouble with the Shookah sometime. It's not any one thing. It's just who they are."

"That is prejudice, and you know it. If you tried to get to know them..."

"They won't talk to anyone, Chekov, except you. If you try to start a conversation they just turn their backs and walk away. If anyone's prejudiced, it's not us."

"Security to the engineering section. Deck twelve. Security to..."

"Excuse me." Jones was out of the door before the words were half spoken.

Chekov slid the cassettes back onto the mess room table and sat down, wondering what it would feel like to have to dash off and confront every security alert that echoed over the intra ship. Most of them were merely routine, he knew. This was probably a coolant spill or a false alarm. But to have to be prepared for all the possibilities, never to know when it would be serious, always knowing that you were going to be in the front line...

"Captain Kirk, to the mess room on Engineering Deck twelve, please. Captain Kirk, Engineering Deck twelve."

He glanced up, startled. That was his own location. He stacked the cassettes up into an orderly tower and got to his feet, just as the door slid open and Larson swept in, followed by two guards and two struggling, cursing teenage boys.

Larson grinned broadly at him and winked. "Boys will be boys, I suppose. I dare say at your age Mister Chekov here would have given his eye teeth to get into a starship's engine room."

The boys gave up struggling, taken aback by this apparently sympathetic response to their offences.

"We just got lost," the younger of the two pleaded hopefully. Larson guffawed. Chekov started to go, relieved that this didn't concern him. "Hold on a minute, Ensign. I haven't had any response from the captain on your report. You have submitted it, haven't you?"

"Yes, Commander."

"Hm. How very strange."

Chekov looked away and Larson shook his head. "Rule one, kid. Never make threats unless you intend to carry them out. You'll have noticed that that's a rule I never break. Of course, a threat and a bluff aren't the same thing."

Chekov heard Kirk's voice outside in the corridor. "May I go now, Commander?"

"No, I think you should stay. I need a witness so I don't get accused of maltreating my prisoners." He sat down at the table, and laid his phaser in front of him. "Now, lads, we're about to have a little talk with the captain and we're going to be very polite, aren't we? Captain, we found these two in engineering. They hadn't touched anything."

Kirk paused just inside the door as it closed and regarded the two miscreants stonily. They didn't seem too bothered, which, Chekov reflected, was a mistake on their part.

"We didn't know we weren't supposed to be in there." The older one spoke this time. He slouched against the bulkhead with his hands forced into his pockets.

"Stand up straight! I'm the captain of this ship and if you don't care for me personally, you'll still show some respect for my rank." The two guards yanked the boys' hands free of their pockets and pushed them forwards to stand in the centre of the room. Larson nodded to his men approvingly.

"Captain." Chekov could feel his insides taking a long, inadequately stabilised downward plunge, but he had a nasty feeling that if he didn't intervene, Kirk, and Starfleet, were going to be tied up in a rights abuse case that would outlast the Federation. "These are minors. You shouldn't interview them except in the presence of their parents or a court appointed..."

The door opened again to admit Ensign Reeves and the Klingon. "What's he doing here?" Kirk demanded, his anger at Chekov's intervention spilling onto a new target.

"I've come to save you the bother of giving these young men a good hiding," Nede explained. He grabbed each of the boys by an arm and cracked their heads together. The younger of the two burst into tears while the older lashed out at the Klingon, landing a substantial punch just above the belt. Nede cuffed him round the head and he staggered into the table. Larson caught him and held him.

"Stop this!" At Kirk's outburst the two boys jumped like rabbits but Nede only shrugged and began to unthread his belt, presumably with the intention of administering further discipline.

"How you intend to deal with this matter is your own affair," Kirk said hurriedly. "But I'd rather you did it in your own quarters. Are you the father of either of these two?"

Nede curled the belt up in his hand. "Our families are complicated. I know they don't look much like me, but no one's going to complain if I thrash some sense into them. Come on, lads." He held out his arms and shepherded the boys into the corridor. Reeves followed like a sheep dog worrying at the heels of a couple of strays and Larson got to his feet to leave with his guards. Kirk turned to Chekov, eyes blazing. "Mister Chekov, if you ever undermine my authority like that again, I'll have you transferred off this ship onto the first garbage scow that needs an engine stoker. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Captain."

"In the mean time, perhaps you should refresh your memory on the relative status of Federation law and Starfleet Regulations, as they relate to civilian passengers on Starfleet vessels and in particular the absolute discretion of commanding officers."

"Yes, Captain."

Kirk brushed past Larson, who had let his men depart without him rather than miss Chekov being dressed down. The ensign lifted his face to confront the gloating Security Chief, only to find a rueful smile on the commander's face. "You were right, kid. The captain's discretion has to be reasonable, and the test of that is going to be whether it conforms with Federation Law, in the absence of exceptional circumstances. I don't think being profoundly irritated counts as exceptional circumstances. Shame about your timing, but you'll learn. And it's all to the good. I reckon in a few more days he'll pay me to take you off his hands."

Chekov picked up his reports for the third time and walked out on Larson as if he wasn't there. In the whole time he'd been aboard the Enterprise, the captain had never spoken to him like that. It was as if the Shookah were trying to drive a wedge between him and Kirk, with Larson hovering like a vulture to pick up the pieces. He couldn't even stay away from them. They were haunting him like familiar spirits.

/Sorry, I didn't mean to involve you./ Nede sounded unrepentant, amused even.

/Where the hell are you, you bastard?/ Chekov let the thought escape before he could stop it. So often, he'd promised himself he wouldn't do this. So often, Harmony had wooed him back.

/In your head./

/You know what I mean./

There was a sense that Nede was taking his time, considering the options but Chekov couldn't dig deep enough to trace what was passing through the Klingon's mind.

/Rec room, deck five. Maybe we should talk./

***

Chekov could never remember being this furious before and the patronising good humour with which the Klingon received his complaints only made things worse. He slammed the reports down on the rec room table, drawing startled glances from the scattering of crewmen.

"I don't need your protection. And even if I did, you can't go round starting brawls on a Starship. It's dangerous."

Nede shrugged easily. "I don't know why you're telling me this. It was Sky's idea."

"Sky does what you tell him..."

"When he wants to. Why don't you go and whinge to him? Durath's blood, man, you ought to be grateful. He was only doing what you used to do for Harmony."

"This is not the same. I... dealt with people who insulted her and I gave them a fair chanced to defend themselves. Ameche was only doing his job and you..."

"If you say so." The Klingon suddenly smiled, as if at some irresistible joke. "Oh, Kirk's face when he thought I was going to strap those boys right there and then!"

"Why shouldn't he be shocked?" Chekov demanded.

"Well, he didn't seem to object when what's-his-name, Ameche, tanned your hide. Or is it okay when it's disguised as something else?"

"I just want you to understand that I don't want this. And I thought you weren't supposed to be in here? Captain Kirk restricted you to the rec facilities on deck seven."

Nede smiled. "Did he?"

Chekov turned his back deliberately on Nede as he jabbed the buttons to summon a cup of coffee. It would be just his luck if Kirk had changed his mind and decided to let the bastards roam around the ship at will. Sometimes you just couldn't rely on anyone. He stared at the dispenser, fighting down his fury and suddenly realised that he'd ordered two cups without meaning to...

"Nede!"

"Yes?" The Shookah was looking down at him with a perplexed and childlike innocence. He reached out a hand and helped himself to the second cup. "Sit down, Pavel. Let's talk. If we're making difficulties for you..."

"Why do you have to do that? Why can't you just get your own coffee? Or do you enjoy forcing me to..."

"I can't force you to do anything you don't want. I only slipped that one past you because you weren't concentrating. And anyway, it's so much easier to talk over a drink. You can hide behind your cup, cover up a hesitation with a quick sip, throw it at me if you feel like it. Come on, Pavel. It's not that bad. You're taking it all so seriously. It's just a bit of fun. You're one of us. Didn't you enjoy being able to beat your captain? I thought Sky did rather well for you there."

"I didn't want to beat him. I certainly didn't want to be forced..."

"We can't force you to do anything if you don't want to. You must have wanted to. Just a little bit. So enjoy it!"

"Get out of here. Get out before I..."

"Before you what?" Suddenly the irritating playfulness had vanished, and Nede was every inch the Klingon warrior, looming over the ensign, the coffee mug looking like an egg cup in his oversized hand. "You're not threatening me, are you?"

Chekov felt his own anger rebound off the solid wall of outrage that suddenly enveloped Nede. The Shookah drained the mug like a stirrup cup and tossed it accurately twenty feet to a waste disposal chute. "You arrogant little bastard. We're not good enough for you, are we? An embarrassment. You didn't mind playing friendly with pretty little Harmony Beale, so long as it earned you good conduct points from your teachers, but now we're a little more trouble, now some of the dirt is rubbing off the kettle..."

"Keep your voice down!" Chekov hissed desperately.

The Klingon froze, then placed a hand on each of Chekov's shoulders and shoved him roughly up against the wall, his attacker's shoulders effectively blocking his view of the rest of the rec room. He heard a chair scrape away from a table, as someone got up, but he had a horrible feeling that Nede would ride roughshod over any attempt to intervene on his behalf.

"You don't want to hear me? Fine. You won't."

"What do you mean?"

"What I say."

Nede cupped his hands and smashed them into the sides of Chekov's head. The pain was incredible, meeting from either side somewhere in the centre of his skull. He slumped to the floor, unable to open his eyes against the agony, feeling the deck lurch underneath him as his sense of balance battled to recover from the assault.

"Chekov, are you okay? What did he do?"

"Get a doctor. Call sickbay..."

"Chekov? Don't move. Just take it easy."

He forced his eyes open, his vision blurred and uncertain, his ears ringing against a background of utter silence. He could see that people were talking, but he couldn't hear so much as a whisper of it, even as the ringing died away.

"I can't hear anything."

"It was that Klingon bastard. He must have burst his eardrums..." Having registered that Chekov was temporarily deaf, everyone seemed to stop trying to communicate with him. Chekov ignored them in turn and pulled himself up uncertainly to sit against the wall, holding on to it as the deck seemed to pitch and sway. A lieutenant put a friendly hand on his shoulder and smiled sympathetically as one might at a slow-witted foreigner. "Doctor McCoy will be here in a minute," someone told her. Chekov read their lips without difficulty. He closed his eyes again and put his hands to his ears. They felt red-hot and his hands came away smeared with blood.

***

McCoy thumped his kit down on the table. "What happened?"

"The Klingon hit him. He must have boxed his ears. He can't hear anything."

"Chekov?" No response. McCoy knelt down and peeled Chekov's hands away from his face. "Can you hear me?"

The ensign started to shake his head, then thought better of it and said, "No." After all, there was no reason not to talk, just because he couldn't hear. McCoy's tricorder flashed its lights silently.

"Burst eardrums." This time the words were accompanied by the faintest tickle, a physical sensation rather than hearing. It hardly registered over the pain but it was reassuring none the less. The doctor helped him up to his feet. As long as he kept his eyes open and moved slowly, he could balance well enough but McCoy kept a supportive arm around him on the way to sick bay. By the time they got there the nursing staff was ready for him. Obviously forewarned by McCoy, Chapel helped him onto a bed and pulled a screen round in front of him.

- Okay? flashed up on it.

"Yes," he responded uncertainly. Then he smiled a little. "I feel like you can't hear me..."

- I know. Don't worry. Doctor McCoy will put you right in no time. Does it hurt?

"Just a little," Chekov lied.

- Painkillers coming up. The cool tingle of the hypo took him by surprise, but the headache, the bone-deep agony, subsided to a faint pressure.

"Thank you." He rubbed at his neck with the heels of his hands. "I'd murder that Klingon if he wasn't twice my size..."

- No need to shout. McCoy appeared as if from thin air.

-This is quite a simple procedure. I'm going to rebuild the membranes in your ears. But I'll need to give you a general anaesthetic and it will be a day or two before your hearing is one hundred percent again. What the hell did he do this for?

"We were arguing..."

- Oh, well, what more excuse does a Shookah need? And a Klingon at that. Who do they think they're fooling? The biggest collection of misfits and layabouts the galaxy's ever seen...

Chekov quit watching McCoy's words on the screen. While McCoy never had paid much attention to anything the Russian had said, it seemed that being deaf made him even less worth listening to. At least his temporary handicap gave him an excuse to ignore McCoy in return.

A sudden touch on his arm recaptured his attention. Chapel smiled down at him.

- It must be wonderful, not having to listen to him, she mouthed. Chekov blushed guiltily.

- You're going under now. Count to twenty for me, please...

***

Someone was patting his cheek, trying to get his attention. He tried to roll away from it and go back to sleep but something caught at his shoulders and held him flat on his back. He wasn't sure why he'd been sleeping like that anyway. He always slept curled up on his side. He blinked his eyes open and the realisation that he was in sickbay clicked into place. No wonder it was so quiet. His ears were probably still shot full of anaesthetic. Chapel was smiling at him, saying something. After a moment she looked surprised and turned to pull the screen round.

- How do you feel?

"Thirsty."

- Any pain?

"No. My neck feels stiff. And I can't hear."

- Give it another half hour or so. Doctor McCoy wants me to sit you up, and I'm going to give you some armrests. You'll probably feel giddy.

The bed rose gently, lifting him evenly into a sitting position, and he went on rotating after it stopped, tumbling over and over until he realised that it was just his sense of balance playing tricks. The nurse put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and he loosened his white knuckle grip on the rests.

"Will that wear off in half an hour, too?"

She said something, then nodded exaggeratedly and swivelled the screen to accommodate his new position.

- I'm sorry. I thought you could lip read quite well. I'll get you a drink. Don't try to turn your head. You'll make yourself dizzy again.

She vanished from his line of sight and he felt a wave of panic, an overwhelming need to track her with his eyes, until he realised that a glass panel on the darkened diagnostic display opposite him reflected her well enough for him to see that she was returning with a glass of water.

- I've got you a straw. I don't want you to tip your head just yet.

"Don't go away again." The words escaped before he realised what he was saying.

- Are you feeling very giddy? I'll get you something for it.

"No!"

She looked concerned and pulled the arm rests higher to form a safe barrier either side of the narrow bed.

- There. You can't roll out now. I'll only be a moment. You'll feel much better...

"I'm not dizzy. I'm..."

- Yes

She glanced up at the screen. It looked wrong without punctuation.

- Question mark.

He forced a smile. "I can't hear anything, and when I can't see you, it's as if you're not there."

- Then I'll stay. Have something to drink. Doctor McCoy will be back in a moment.

"Are we the only people here? In sick bay, I mean?"

- No. There's a sprained wrist in the treatment room. And its owner. And a slight case of dragon scald seeing the doctor at the moment. You're lucky you can't hear that one. I think he knows some curses that would shock even you.

Chekov reached out with his mind to see which of the Shookah had fallen foul of the little monster, but couldn't find anyone. Not a Shookah, then.

"Who?"

- Dunitz, he said his name was. He's a big softie about that thing. I'd've thrown a bucket of water over it.

Maybe whatever drugs McCoy had used for the surgery had stopped up the Shookah part of his mind. Maybe they couldn't read him either. That would infuriate Nede. Perhaps he should ask the doctor to keep him anaesthetised until the wretched tribe departed.

"How is he?"

He turned his head involuntarily toward the unexpected tickle of sound, earning a disapproving grimace from the nurse and another lurching swing of vertigo. McCoy was smiling.

"You've arrived just in time to be the first thing he heard. He'll probably have a relapse now."

"Dizzy?"

"Yes, Doctor. But it's getting better."

He was still having to check the screen, but he could match the sounds with the words now.

"Excellent. Let me turn down the pain relief a fraction, because that will be deadening your responses. We can probably improve your sense of balance without having you screaming with pain... How's that?"

He moved his head cautiously. "Better."

"No pain?"

"No. Well, not much."

"Say if it bothers you. Nurse, I need you to splint up that wrist."

"Yes, Doctor." She paused. "Mister Chekov's a little hesitant about being left..."

"You'll be all right. Your balance will settle down in no time. You'll be tightrope walking before you know it."

"I know. I'm fine now. It's all right." He felt embarrassed at having revealed his fears to Chapel, and worse at having them relayed to the doctor. Nonetheless, the moment the two of them left the room, the sensation of being utterly alone hit him so hard he could barely keep from screaming at them to come back. His hand stopped just short of the call button. This was ridiculous. If there was anyone to hear the summons then he didn't need to worry, and if there wasn't there was no point calling. He withdrew his hand like a drowning man letting go of a life belt. He'd wait five minutes and then he'd find an excuse to call. But not before. He watched the seconds register on the monitors, more slowly than he would have believed possible.

"Hi!"

"Damn, you made me jump," Chekov complained.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to creep up on you." Sulu looked thoroughly contrite. "Chapel said you could hear - but I guess not my fairy footfalls."

"Not yet. It's much better in just the last few minutes. Can you stay for a while?"

"Why, are you bored? Of course I can."

***

An hour or so later, Sulu had departed, but Chekov could turn his head now, and sickbay was busy with routine customers. If anything, the ensign was beginning to yearn for a little peace and quiet.

"Could I have a word with Ensign Chekov, Doctor?"

McCoy turned irritably on the Security Chief. "Can't it wait?"

"That depends on how you feel about having unauthorised weapons aboard this ship. Personally, I don't like it." Larson sat down on the bed opposite Chekov with the air of someone whose respect for medical privilege extends only so far. McCoy had the feeling that if the next bed had been close enough, the Commander would have rested his boots on it to make the point. "How'd they get them, Chekov? Did you let them bring them on board?"

"I don't know what..."

"Phasers, Mister Chekov. One of your friends happened to walk through a security point. He was carrying a phaser. Rather nice antique Tellarite model. What I want to know is, how he brought it aboard and are there any more?"

"Reeves and Jones searched them..."

"I have spoken to my men. They think the phaser must have been in pieces and hidden in with one of the babies." The commander shook his head wearily, as if shocked at this cynical exploitation of helpless infants. "Would you believe it?"

"Historically, they have needed to defend themselves from hostile..."

"But you always search the babies first. Come on, Ensign. What were you thinking of? Or had they tipped you off? Or maybe they slipped you the phaser and you brought it on board?"

"Why would I do that?"

"As a favour? Because you owe them one? Because they're blackmailing you? Maybe you'd enjoy making trouble for me."

"I didn't have any reason to want to make trouble for you."

"Oh, but you do now. Maybe you were just thinking ahead." Larson stood up abruptly. "Are there any more weapons?"

"I don't know."

"Why'd the Klingon do this to you?"

"I told him to get out of the rec room and he lost his temper."

"That's all?" Larson's manner had become aggressive, and McCoy looked over disapprovingly.

"Commander, the captain will want to question Ensign Chekov himself. I don't think you need to..."

Larson ignored McCoy completely. "Why would they be carrying phasers around anyway? Are you sure you didn't argue with him because he's planning to do something stupid?"

Chekov sat forward. "No."

"Larson, get out of here, now, or I'll call... "

"Security?"

"No, a couple of my nurses."

"I'll deal with this, Doctor." Kirk's voice rang out over the argument and McCoy spun to confront the captain. "I don't want you bullying him either. He's getting over an operation, not to mention some severe bruising."

Kirk raised his eyebrows. "Bruising? I didn't think I..."

Larson smiled knowingly at Chekov. "So you really didn't split on Ameche?"

"Hold on. What's going on here?" Kirk looked back and forth between the two men. "What bruises?"

"I had a... problem with Mister Chekov's behaviour, Captain. Rather than deal with it formally, and spoil his record, I assigned him a little extra physical training."

"You ordered Ameche to work him over?"

"If the captain doesn't find my methods acceptable, I'll be happy to discuss alternative approaches... sir."

"Do you want to make a complaint, Ensign?"

"No, Captain."

"Larson, I won't tolerate any form of bullying. Do you understand?"

Larson looked surprisingly contrite. "That certainly wasn't my intention. I thought, following this morning's showing, that the ensign could defend himself adequately against Ameche. It was a misjudgement, for which I apologise. And speaking of Ameche, may I ask what the captain intends to do about the three men who assaulted him?"

"I've banned them from using the gym, or any of the other recreational facilities for the remainder of the trip. Perhaps in the interests of fair play, you'd like to extend that ban to yourself, during your off-duty hours."

Larson smiled again. "Yes, Captain."

Kirk nodded sharply. "Dismissed, Commander."

"Sir."

Kirk waited while Larson strolled coolly out of sick bay, then turned back to his navigator.

McCoy was still hovering, and the captain raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

"He is still on the sick list, Captain."

"Five minutes, Bones."

"Okay. But no more."

Kirk didn't look as if he'd come to offer sympathy. "What's this about phasers?"

"They managed to bring one aboard without us spotting it. I don't know how, exactly. We searched the adults and older children, but not the younger ones. I think that may..."

"Well, that's the commander's problem. I can see why he was annoyed with you. What happened to you just now?"

"I had an argument with Nede, and he hit me."

"Ensign, I've had more occasions to find fault with your behaviour in the last two days than in the whole of the previous six months. And I'm not talking about trivial matters. These people are going to be with us for another two weeks. How are you going to survive that?"

"I'll keep away from them."

Kirk shook his head. "I get the impression that they enjoy making life difficult for you. Can you deal with that without getting into one fight after another?"

Chekov swallowed determinedly. "Yes sir."

"I hope you're right, because there's a limit to how many times I can turn a blind eye to this sort of thing." The captain sighed. "You'd better get some rest. It looks like you're going to need all the patience and good temper you can muster, and I want you fully fit when we approach the nebula." He smiled. "I don't want to have to confine my best navigator to quarters at a time like this."

Chapter 4

"Seventy three point five six percent," Sulu said grimly. Chekov didn't respond, and he continued, "I'll run a diagnostic on the..."

"There is nothing wrong with the systems." The navigator sat with his eyes fixed on the target buoy that unaccountably appeared to have acquired Achilles-like invulnerability.

"Maybe you should ask Doctor McCoy..."

"There is nothing wrong with me, either."

"Chekov. We usually get ninety percent plus on this sort of drill. You're just not concentrating, or something."

Chekov rubbed his eyes wearily. Whatever the problem, if they went on much longer with this, everyone's performance was going to begin to suffer. "No, it can't be me. My ratings on speed and accuracy are normal. It is only when we're working together that it goes to pieces."

"Well, they do say that Shookah always blame the other guy."

"Sulu, don't start."

The helmsman was already regretting having said it, but if he didn't someone else would. He shrugged. "I'm sorry, but it's fairly noticeable that these people aren't doing you any good. Why don't you ask McCoy to give you another day off? I don't care what the computer says. You aren't with it. This whole drill has been a complete waste of time."

"Right." Chekov closed down the auxiliary navigation console and got up. As he headed for the door, Sulu hurried after him.

"Don't just stalk off like that. Look, we're due a break. Come and have a coffee. Tell me what's going on. Who are these Shookah people exactly? How come you know them?"

"They have nothing to do with the problem. I screwed up the drill. All on my own. My hearing and my balance are fine. The Shookah have absolutely nothing to do with it. Don't. Blame. Them." With the last three words, Chekov stopped and turned to face Sulu.

The lieutenant threw up his hands in exasperation. "Fine. Have it your way. Do you want a cup of coffee?"

"No. I want a week's leave and a large vodka. But I'll take the coffee."

"And we can talk," Sulu continued, happily, but Chekov shook his head. He ordered coffee from the rec room servitor, and leaned against the wall to drink it, emphasising that he didn't have time to sit down and chat. "Mister Spock wants me to liaise with the science department over our route through the nebula."

***

There was a quiet knock on Kirk's cabin door, and he said, "Come in," rather lazily, expecting McCoy or Spock. Few others among his crew would bother him without using the intercom first to check that it was convenient.

The Klingon more than filled the narrow door. Kirk blinked once or twice. There was something wrong with Nede's appearance that he couldn't immediately put a finger on. Something out of character...

"May I speak to you, Captain Kirk, about something very important?"

"Yes, come in." He stood up and laid his book on the desk top, still trying to puzzle out the visual clues that wouldn't come into focus. Nede moved quietly into the work area, and pulled nervously at his sharply pressed jacket. His beard was combed, and he'd tied his hair back into a neat ponytail. The tramp had dressed up to visit the captain. Kirk wasn't sure whether to be flattered or suspicious. "How can I help you?"

"I'm aware, Captain, that because of us you're having to divert to Starbase eleven. And I know that your current mission, to observe the K4 Nebula, is scientifically important, but..."

"Yes?"

"I wondered if you could consider going to the starbase first."

"Why?" Kirk was impressed at the effort Nede had gone to, but he wasn't in the least inclined to give way to the Shookah's wishes, in this or any other matter. He knew how adept they were at getting what they wanted at the least possible cost to themselves, and he didn't intend to be twisted round the Klingon's little finger.

"We believe that the Nebula is dangerous. We're worried."

"You've been listening to too many old stories. No ships have been lost here for over thirty years."

"Since the restrictions have been in place. But you aren't going to be observing those restrictions."

"That's true, but an analysis of the losses that have occurred suggest that the present limit is wildly overcautious. We believe that it's perfectly safe to approach even closer than the five hundred million kilometres we're planning on. Trust me, Nede. I have no intention of putting my own crew in any unnecessary danger, let alone a group of civilians."

"Captain, you have no knowledge of what's inside the Nebula, or why it's been dangerous in the past. With respect, how can you assess the danger?"

Kirk felt his temper rising. "Starfleet has a great deal of expertise at assessing the dangers associated with interstellar travel. You'll excuse me if I prefer to rely on that expertise rather than the ignorant superstitions of a bunch of freeloaders."

Nede nodded. "I see. I won't waste your time then." Without another word, he trod heavily across the deck and out of the door.

Kirk reached out for the intercom switch, to warn Larson that the Shookah might be planning to make trouble. Then he shook his head. This was hardly a new development, certainly not anything that justified disturbing his Security Chief. As for the Klingon's worries about... about...

He stared blankly at the wall of his cabin for a few seconds. Then he picked up his book again and continued to read.

***

"This nebula..."

Chekov looked up to see who had spoken to him. The Shookah, Dunitz, was standing by the rec room view ports, his meal steaming on a tray and his eyes fixed on the milky cloud of gas and debris.

"What about it?" He spoke rather shortly.

"How much closer will we be going?"

"We are one and a half light years away at present. That is the limit for normal shipping. We will go in to five hundred million kilometres at the closest. Why?"

"It's evil," Dunitz replied. He picked up a piece of raw carrot and chewed it thoughtfully.

"Well, you would know."

Dunitz slammed his tray down next to Chekov's place at the table. "Takes one to know one, is that what you mean?" He slid into the seat. Chekov laid his knife and fork down on top of his half-finished meal, and made to get up. Dunitz put a hand on his arm, trapping him, unless he wanted to struggle. The thought of what the captain would say if he managed to get into yet another fight with these people was enough to keep him motionless.

"Nede wants a word with you."

"Tell him to go screw himself."

"Oh, Mister Chekov. You always used to be soooo polite."

Since he was stuck here, the ensign decided to finish his meal. He speared some vegetables.

"Been lonely lately have you?"

"Because you won't talk to me? Hardly."

"No. I didn't mean that. I meant being all on your own, inside your skull. What's it like?"

Chekov laid his fork down again and pushed the plate away, then for good measure shoved Dunitz' tray out of reach across the table. "What are you talking about?"

"Can't you tell? Haven't you noticed anything different the last couple of days? Other than the fact that we've been keeping out of your head?"

"My hearing's recovered..."

"No. Not that."

"I'm used to being on my own. Not like your children who can hardly talk because they..."

"They're the future, Pavel. They won't need to talk. But you're not used to being on your own, not really. I know these people here aren't Shookah. But you could hear them a little bit, couldn't you? And now, when you shut your eyes, they just aren't there, are they? You can't second guess them, fit in with them. Oh, you're no worse off than they are, really, but you've been a Shookah all your life. You don't do things quite the way they do. You don't have quite the same skills. You've used the fact that you can almost pick up what they're thinking, rather than learning to read their faces, or notice just how they use words and so forth. And now you can't anymore. We've blocked you out. You shut your eyes, and there's absolutely no one there."

"I can't read anyone's mind..."

"Not any more, you can't."

"My ESP rating is no better than average."

"Then they're not measuring the right thing. I bet if I went to your Doctor Bones he'd say I was as poor a bet for telepathy as you are."

A sharp twinge of doubt nagged at Chekov. Maybe Dunitz was right, maybe his disastrous performance in the drill this morning, wasn't just an after effect of Nede's attack. Maybe it was something more.

"What does Nede want to see me about?"

"I dunno. Maybe he's going to give you a chance to apologise, and get your..."

"Go to hell, all of you." He'd raised his voice, and half a dozen faces were turned to see what was amiss. Not again, he read in their expressions. Picking up his tray he made good his escape before Dunitz could stop him.

***

"How're you feeling this morning?"

Sulu's well meant inquiry sparked off another wave of irritation in the normally placid Chekov.

"I'm fine. Doctor McCoy says I'm fine. I just messed up yesterday, all right?"

"Okay. You just look a bit tired. I..."

"Where the hell are we?" Chekov was staring at his console as if the previous navigator had scrawled graffiti all over it.

"Still heading in to the centre of the nebula, currently at three hundred seventy million kilometres, moving at three quarters impulse."

"Our closest approach was supposed to be five hundred million..."

"The captain revised that during the night. We're going to go in to fifty million."

"You have a problem with that, Ensign?"

Chekov turned in response to Kirk's voice. "Uh, no, Captain." He concentrated on checking over the settings on his instruments, and tracking back their course. Until oh three hundred hours that morning, they'd been following the parabolic course he'd laid in with Mister Spock's approval, approaching the nebula at a slight angle to its plane, intending to clip the arbitrary safety boundary that englobed the phenomenon just after noon today. During the latter part of the night shift they had altered course and speed, heading directly to the centre. If they continued, they would reach it in just under thirty hours.

He tried again. "Captain, we are going to be experiencing a dramatic increase in densities of gas and debris. Should I strengthen the navigational shields?"

"Mister Spock will be handling that manually as required."

The ensign lowered his voice. "Sulu, did we get clearance from Starfleet for this?"

The helmsman shrugged. "I wasn't on duty. We must have done."

"But we have civilians on board, children..."

"Mister Sulu, could you increase the magnification factor by ten to the fourth." Something about Spock's calm intonation subdued Chekov's anxiety.

"Sir." Sulu smiled reassuringly at Chekov as he complied with the order. The milky cloud before them shimmered into a sharper focus, and revealed structure, areas of turbulence and calm, shadings of colour.

"Mister Chekov, can you plot a course to bring us closer to the region centred on coordinates four seven nine oh nine nine."

"Laid in." He used everyone else's intense interest in the view forward to take a quick look around the bridge. The usual calm activity was taking place at every station, sensor's weren't screaming warnings. Spock was listening, bird like, to his computer ear piece, while checking back and forth between the view screen and something displayed at his own station. The captain appeared to be simply enjoying the spectacle. Chekov sighed and dismissed his concerns. He'd let Dunitz get to him. He was used to trusting his fellow officers for his safety and it had always worked in the past. It would work now.

***

Three hours later, he slipped out of his seat to take a break, rubbing his eyes. The unfolding beauty on the main screen as they penetrated deeper into the nebula was compulsive. Glancing away for even a moment seemed to risk missing yet another natural wonder. He paused to register a great whirlpool of dust, turning fast enough to be seen by the naked eye. A quick mental calculation staggered him. The material was approaching relativistic velocities. "It looks as if someone has churned it up with a giant spoon."

"Indeed, Ensign. I am beginning to wonder if this can be an entirely natural phenomena." Spock had moved away from his station to check something with Uhura, and he paused now behind the vacant central seat. Kirk, too, was taking a break.

"If it isn't..." Chekov began, worriedly.

"That is something we can only determine by closer examination."

***

The rec deck was deserted, unusually for the time of day. A towheaded Shookah boy was alone in the big room, chasing cereal around a bowl with a spoon. Chekov was fairly certain that the captain's prohibition extended even to juveniles and thumbed the intercom. "Security. One of our passengers is in the main rec room."

The child looked up. "The food dispensers are shut for maintenance on our deck. I forgot to have any breakfast."

"Too bad." Chekov ordered coffee and sat down a couple of tables away from the boy, staring into his cup.

"Is it true, that Nede made you a giaour? I can't hear you any more."

"I can't hear you either. I don't know if it is because of anything Nede did."

"That's frightening." The intensity of his words made Chekov look across at him. Yes, it was frightening. On the other hand, if the thought helped to break down the sharp divide in the child's mind between them and us... "It's not so bad. It just means we have to talk instead."

"Oh, it's you again, is it?" Larson strode across the rec room, dodging tables, to come and stand behind the errant passenger. "Is this late breakfast, or an early lunch, or just refuelling half way?"

The child shrugged.

"He says the food processors are out," Chekov offered, before Larson got too deep into his interrogation.

"I know. They'll be back on line in half an hour. We did offer to run a waitress service if they needed anything." Larson pulled out a chair and sat comfortably down next to the boy. "What's your name, lad?"

"Michael."

"And how are those dragon's eggs coming along?"

Chekov could hardly keep from staring at Larson. The bully, who'd casually had him beaten up for missing a class, had vanished to be replaced by everyone's favourite uncle.

"Jenny says they're doing fine. If they hatch out before we reach the Starbase, you can come and see them."

"Can I? Thanks, Michael. What d'you call baby dragons anyway? Kittens?"

"Hatchlings. Mister Scott says they should each have their own pile of treasure to nest on. He's telling me a story about a dragon called Smaug."

Perhaps it wasn't just Larson. Perhaps every confirmed bachelor on the ship concealed a hidden fatherly streak. Chekov picked up his cup and stood up, only to find Larson looking at him.

"The offer's still open."

"To do what, Commander? Look after lost children or beat up other ensigns?"

"Variety keeps the job interesting. It wasn't just that I was annoyed with you. I thought you were hiding your light. The way you tackled the captain, if you hadn't wanted to get hurt there shouldn't have been a thing Ameche could do about it."

"It was just a... a fluke, that I beat the captain. He wasn't concentrating. I really am not that good."

"No. I can imagine that you might let yourself get hurt, but I can't see you standing by and let Ameche take it for you. If you're not that good, wouldn't you like to be? Why d'you let me push you around?"

Chekov didn't have an answer, but suddenly the idea of being able to defend himself appealed to him, rather than featuring as another item on an onerous list of skills to acquire. Three days of being towered over and needled by the giant Klingon had left him feeling vulnerable, leaving aside Larson's contribution to recent events. And he could no longer argue that he was disadvantaged by height and weight, not if Sky could use his body as he had.

"I will ask Lieutenant Greene if she would schedule me another class."

Larson smiled. "If she won't, I will. Come on, Michael. Let's go see where your Mom is."

***

"I sent you a message that I wanted to see you."

Nede and Sky were blocking the corridor, and when Chekov stopped, perforce, Sky moved round to prevent him going back the way he'd come. Trapped, the Russian set his feet apart pugnaciously. "I don't obey your orders."

"This isn't about scoring points. I'm worried about something." Nede did seem anxious, on edge. "This nebula thing. You told Dunitz we weren't going that close to it, but we keep getting nearer and nearer."

"This is a research vessel, as well as a battleship. We do investigate things like that. We are well shielded and on permanent alert."

"And we've got kids on board, babies..."

"That was your choice, Nede. You wanted a free ride home. You could have waited for a commercial freighter. You could have paid for your passage on the one that threw you off. I know that Jadis is carrying several hundred thousand credit's worth of gemstones..."

He stopped awkwardly. He did know that, but he wasn't sure how.

"That cattle ship had no right to be charging steerage, let alone what her master wanted."

Nede brushed Sky's complaint aside with an impatient, "Later. How close in are we now?"

"Seventy nine million kilometres." Chekov was glad that Nede couldn't read how worried that made him.

"You told Dunitz we weren't going further in than five hundred."

"Our orders were changed."

"How much closer?"

"We will turn at fifty"

"That'll be..." The Klingon turned to Sky who stared at the ceiling for a moment: "...two and a half times as bad."

Chekov scowled at him. He wasn't in any hurry to forgive him for Ameche. "If you are talking gravity, or radiation intensity, yes. What is the problem?"

Nede's concern was obviously genuine, although it struck Chekov that he was hamming it up a little, as if afraid that the ensign wouldn't otherwise get the message. Did that explain why all these people seemed over the top? Did the rest of the world strike them as deaf and in need of being shouted at?

"For the past day and a half, my people have been having - symptoms. Headaches, nightmares, and very strong, conflicting compulsions, to get closer to that thing, and to run away from it as fast as they possibly can."

"Who have you told?"

"I spoke to the captain. He ignored me, as I expected. He made it very clear before we even came aboard that this mission took precedence over our safety..."

"So you knew the risks."

"Pavel, this isn't research, it's foolhardy. Hasn't anyone else experienced anything?"

"I haven't heard."

"You haven't felt anything?"

Chekov shook his head.

"The change in orders, to go closer, it came from where?"

"I don't know. It is not my place to question something like that."

Sky spoke up for only the second time, sounding deeply serious, very like his sister whenever she'd wanted to win Chekov's support for some course of action. "I think you should question it. Soon. Please, Pavel, we have a lot of very frightened people to take care of. They're helping each other as much as they can, but that thing is drawing us in like a Siren."

"I will pass on your concern to the captain."

"Somehow," Sky said pessimistically, "I don't think that's going to be enough."

***

After dinner, Chekov made a point of walking past the rec room set aside for the passengers. It was deserted. A quick check on the gym and sick bay revealed no sign of the Shookah there either. In the end, he swallowed his pride enough to go to the cabin which Nede and his family shared. The entire party were crowded together, huddled on the bunks, or sitting dejectedly wherever there was space. Jadis was sitting with her back against the door, and turned angrily when it opened. A smile smoothed over her face when she saw who it was. "I thought you were that bloody security man again. Pavel, have you talked to the captain?"

He glanced across at Nede, so used to military hierarchies that it felt wrong to deal with her over something important.

"No, he hasn't, Jadis darling. Of course he hasn't. Why should he make himself look stupid for us?"

"I'm going there now. I wanted to know if it was still as bad, and if it's getting worse."

"Yes."

"Will you come with me, Nede? I have nothing to report. You are the ones who are feeling the effect, whatever it is."

"No. Look, I'll tell you why." Nede picked his way across the floor, placing his great feet delicately between tired children and weary, grey-complexioned adults. "You're going to go to the captain, and discover that he had no outside orders to move in this close, and that he can't give a sensible reason why he ignored his original orders. You're going to tell him that we're concerned, and he's going to tell you it's none of your damned business. If you make a fuss, he's going to throw you off the bridge. Right?"

"You make it sound as if he won't listen to reason."

"That's what I suspect. I hope I'm wrong. But then what will you do?"

Chekov looked at him, suddenly deeply worried. What would he do next? Try to talk to Spock? The First Officer had accepted the captain's orders with no qualms. Try to contact Starfleet Command? And what if he succeeded? If the captain didn't want to turn round, for whatever reason, there was nothing he could do to change his mind. If they'd already breached the directive to keep their distance, why wouldn't the captain go on disobeying orders? "So what do you suggest?"

"Go and make your enquiries. Don't be too aggressive. Don't make too much of our problems. And drop it if you get any opposition. Then come back to us and we'll take it from there."

Nede's voice was carefully pitched at a take it or leave it level, not his usual patronising jollity or the variant of overbearing sarcasm. Clearly he was feeling unusually helpless.

"Take it where?"

"I don't think you should know unless you have to. For your own peace of mind."

***

Chekov verified that the captain was on the bridge and made ready an excuse for going there but it wasn't necessary. Kirk turned away from the continuing spectacle on the view screen and said, "Oh, Mister Chekov," as if he'd just summoned him.

"Yes, Captain?"

"Commander Larson has requested a meeting with the both of us tomorrow morning. What's this about?"

Chekov wondered why he didn't ask Larson, then remembered that, according to Ameche at least, the two of them didn't get on. "He wants me to transfer to Security for a while, sir."

"Really? Did he say why?"

"Not exactly. At least..."

"I dare say he'll tell me himself when he's ready. I'm going to put the helm personnel on a four hour rota from midnight. As the nebula gets denser, navigation and helm are becoming more tiring. Make sure you check your schedule."

"Yes, sir. But surely we will be on our way back out by then?"

Kirk frowned. "What makes you think that?"

"What distance are we at now?"

Chekov had turned and addressed the question to DeSalle at the helm. Kirk pulled him up sharp. "Mister Chekov! What do you think you're doing?"

"Captain, our orders were to stop at five hundred million k, and only this morning you changed that to fifty million. Where are we now?"

Kirk pushed out of his seat. "Get off my bridge. Now."

Chekov gave one last glance at the telemetry below the view screen, knowing he could interpret the figures later at leisure, and then said, "Yes, Captain," in the most docile tone he could muster and turned to enter the lift. Kirk was on his heels and the doors had hardly closed on them before he was speaking. "Hold. Mister Chekov, would you care to explain that display of ill-discipline and bad manners?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I was just surprised."

"Has Doctor McCoy cleared you?"

"Yes, Captain. I saw him first thing this morning, and..."

"Because you're running out of excuses."

"I know, sir. I'm sorry."

"I've always considered you one of my more reliable officers. You get carried away sometimes, but I thought I knew where your priorities lay. You're to have nothing more to do with these Shookah. Until they leave the ship, you're confined to quarters unless your duties require you to be elsewhere." Chekov's stricken expression cut through Kirk's anger. He forced himself to sound less furious. "I don't intend this as a punishment. It's for your own protection. For Heaven's sake, Ensign. They've assaulted you, picked arguments with you at every opportunity..."

"Captain, they are deeply frightened of the Nebula. They don't want to go any closer to it."

"Mister Chekov, that is enough. I will not have you involving yourself in my command decisions. Is that understood?"

The captain had turned in an instant from being angry but accessible to being on the other side of a locked door and Chekov couldn't even pinpoint where he'd gone wrong, or how he'd ever known how to do it right.

"Yes, sir. I understand. And I apologise."

"Deck six."

The journey took only seconds, but they were almost unbearable.

***

"We will need weapons." Chekov was on edge and it showed. It was hardly surprising. Here he was, talking with the Shookah, in direct defiance of the captain's orders, conspiring with them, no less.

Sky barked a short, supercilious laugh. "This ship must be bristling with them."

"Yes. And we keep them locked up. I can't go and ask the Chief of Security for half a dozen phasers..."

"No problem," Nede said briskly. "How many do you want, and what sort?"

"Are you planning to steal them? I don't think Larson will let you..."

"There's no problem," the Klingon repeated, and Chekov suddenly felt sick. He'd obviously let the Shookah bring not just one, but an unknown number of weapons aboard, somehow, despite the security guards' searches. Their luggage would have been scanned as it was transported, so they must have come in via the shuttle. Nede had turned away for a moment, and without warning he tipped five assorted phasers into the ensign's lap. Chekov slowly turned them over, unconsciously verifying that they were powered up, and that they were all locked. One didn't have a stun setting. He didn't recognise the type, but he deliberately set it to drain and laid it down, humming softly to itself, on the desk. "No one is going to get killed. No one is going to use a phaser on anything but stun, except me. Do you understand that?"

His own voice sounded like someone else's, someone who knew what they were doing, and believed in it.

Nede stared at him. "We don't know what's waiting there for us. We may all be about to die if this doesn't work. Suppose the only way we can stop Kirk is by killing someone?"

"I will make that decision."

"I don't believe you will."

Chekov wondered if the Klingon was right. It was all very well in theory, to accept the need to sacrifice someone, to accept that by being in Starfleet, everyone had recognised that possibility. It had never come down to him until now to make the decision, and it probably hadn't occurred to the rest of the crew that he might be making it on their behalf.

"If it becomes necessary, I will make that decision."

"I'd feel happier if I knew what you were thinking right now," Nede grumbled.

"Wouldn't it be easier if we just stunned the lot of them?" Sky hadn't contributed much to the planning, after his first few suggestions had been tossed aside. He just didn't know enough about how a starship operated.

"We have to keep control focused on the bridge. There are too many ways people can bring the ship to a halt. If we deny them access to auxiliary control and..."

"I meant the entire crew. Can't we flood the ventilation system with something to knock everyone out..."

"I can't run this ship on my own," Chekov explained, trying to be patient. "Even with your help. There are too many things that need monitoring, particularly as we will be moving at warp eight. And if anything unexpected happens, we might need Spock or Sulu to cope with it."

"Yeah, I see that, but a handful of us on the bridge, not prepared to really hurt anyone, we're not going to be able to stay in control for long enough." Sky fixed Chekov with an uncompromising stare. "I'm only trying to get you to be realistic. The chances are, someone is going to get hurt."

"From the moment we take control, I think we can be out of range in less than an hour. If we are right about how far the influence of the thing extends."

"How?" Nede's questions were never aggressive. He seemed to accept that Chekov knew what he was doing.

"We came in under impulse power, at a fraction of light speed, in order to make observations, and so that our shields would not be damaged by dust and gas. We will leave at Warp eight. That is the maximum we can sustain for any length of time." He didn't stop to consider the number of excuses Scott could come up with not going that fast, or even not going at all. At the end of the day, Sky was correct. The bridge crew were going to be hostages and he was going to have to be prepared to use them.

"What about all the gas and stuff?"

"In warp, we are hardly in the same universe. It will not be a problem."

"When are we going to do this?" Nede wanted to know.

"Just after the next shift starts. And in the meantime..."

Chapter 5

Chekov walked briskly away from Auxiliary Control, reassured that his unofficial bridge crew were thoroughly briefed in the appropriate response to anything that was likely to be thrown at them over the next few hours. He didn't allow himself to dwell on the fact that he didn't trust a single one of them to obey orders. Instead he rehearsed again in his own mind the reasons why he was so certain that he was taking the only possible course of action. There was no way this was going to be easy or pleasant, or, at worst, survivable as a Starfleet Officer. If he was just simply wrong about the situation it was most unlikely in the circumstances that anyone was going to believe the honesty of his intentions. His stomach practically ached with tension, but he walked on towards the lift shaft and went up to the bridge with every outward appearance of calm.

As the lift doors slid open he took a mental roll call. Everyone who should be on the bridge this shift was present and at work at their station. Handling this end of things would have been easier with a low shift crew of comparative strangers, but it was more important that he should have the most senior officers where he could see them. He depressed the call button on his communicator which was rigged to alert Nede and his party, and even as Kirk was looking up to see who had just entered the bridge Chekov had the illicit phaser trained on him.

"Captain, will you please do exactly what I tell you. This phaser is not set on stun."

Kirk stood up, transfixed by the unexpected invasion of his bridge. Chekov kept the phaser pointed steadily at the captain and walked calmly to Uhura's station, where he threw the half dozen switches needed to cut off communications from the bridge to the rest of the ship and transfer all vital external communications functions to auxiliary control.

"Go and sit down by the view screen," he told the lieutenant. "Move slowly."

"Chekov," she objected, in the tones of a mother reasoning with an awkward child, "are you sure you..."

"Quite sure, Lieutenant."

She shrugged helplessly at Kirk, who was still motionless under the threat of the phaser, and did as she was told.

At this point Chekov had anticipated trouble and he was not disappointed. Spock stood up and Sulu slid like an eel out of his seat. Reacting directly to neither, Chekov fired the phaser at Kirk. Both men halted as if hit themselves and Kirk doubled over, wrapping himself round his burnt hand. Uhura leapt up to assist the captain.

"Stay where you are, please, everyone." He ostentatiously adjusted the phaser setting upwards. "I hope now you know I am prepared to use this you won't force me to do it again."

He still held the phaser on Kirk. "Ensign Hartley, please join Lieutenant Uhura. Mister Spock, and Mister Sulu return to your stations, please."

They all obeyed, in what seemed to the terrified ensign like slow motion. Where the hell were Nede and the rest? Sooner or later his concentration would fail and someone would get past his guard. The lift doors swooshed open and Chekov registered with relief the distorted reflection of Nede and three companions in the blank screen of an unused station opposite the lift. They were armed, and they went with welcome speed and assurance to their planned positions. Jadis took the navigator's position next to Sulu, Dunitz took communications, Nede covered Spock and Sky assumed Chekov's position of overall cover in front of the lift doors.

Freed from the necessity of watching five people at once, Chekov moved on to the next stage. A couple of strides took him to the hatch that gave access to the emergency exit from the bridge. He phasered the hinges and the lock until the metal ran and fused. The sour smell of vaporised rubber spiralled up from the deck covering. He knelt down to check his work, taking his time. There was complete, waiting silence on the bridge until he straightened again and turned back to Kirk.

"We are going to proceed on heading 205 at Warp 8. Prepare to execute at my command."

"Captain?" Sulu ventured uncertainly.

"Chekov, what the hell are you doing?" Kirk demanded, his voice tight with pain.

Chekov ignored the question. "Please explain to Mister Sulu that I shall certainly kill you if he does not obey my orders." It was easier to communicate with his friend at one remove through the captain. Somehow he couldn't imagine that Sulu would take him seriously.

"Do as he says."

"But that's directly out of the nebula, Captain." There was a note of outrage in Sulu's voice. Now Chekov was up against the least certain factor in his deliberations. If the alien compulsion to enter the Nebula was too powerful, the ship's officers might behave irrationally in their desperation to obey it. To allow them to continue into the nebula might lead to the death of everyone on board, but Chekov seriously doubted if he could kill any individual himself in order to stop them.

He was spared any immediate decision. Jadis put her phaser to Sulu's neck. "Go and sit over there." Sulu joined Uhura and Hartley, and Jadis slid into Sulu's seat and started to lay in the necessary course alterations.

Chekov came back firmly before anyone could exploit his hesitation.

"Captain, I expect Mister Scott will query the course change and request for Warp 8."

Kirk sighed. He knew damn well that Scott would query it, but it had been too much to hope that Chekov would overlook the obvious.

"Yes?"

I'm sure you can be ready with an explanation."

"I'll try to be convincing."

"You had better. Execute required heading and speed at your discretion."

Jadis confidently manipulated her board, and Chekov felt a quick flicker of satisfaction. No one on the bridge would have guessed that 15 minutes of intensive coaching had made her competent to lay in exactly that course in these precise circumstances, and absolutely no other. She might as well have been operating a food synthesiser for all she understood of the underlying system. He also noted that the navigational shields were up to full strength.

"Captain, at this speed and on this heading we shall enter the Romulan neutral zone at its closest point in 17 hours." Spock spoke for the first time since Chekov had entered the bridge, in his customary disinterested tone. Chekov gave a silent prayer of thanks. If they had not noticed that soon, the fact that they were leaving the nebula would probably have become a more urgent consideration. The distraction was vital.

"Ensign, you'd better think again. There is very little chance that we will reach the neutral zone before we are intercepted by a Federation vessel, and even less that we will survive crossing into the zone." Kirk still cradled his injured hand, but it was obvious that the pain was forgotten in his anxiety for his ship.

"Unless the Romulans are expecting us," Sulu said suddenly, clearly wanting to be reassured that they were not. Every member of the bridge crew was looking at Chekov, willing him to deny it. He forced back the urge to scream at them, to rage at them for even considering that he might betray them like that, for assuming that there was nothing that a pack of Shookah wouldn't stoop to. After all, this was exactly what he wanted. They were too obsessed with the apparent threat to register the real one, that in less than an hour they would be beyond the influence of the K4 Nebula.

The intercom whistled as Mister Scott's voice arrived at the bridge via auxiliary control.

"How long are you going to be wanting Warp 8, Captain?" the engineer inquired, in tones of only moderate annoyance.

Dunitz opened up the intercom for Kirk. Chekov had taken four quick steps to stand next to the captain, and both he and Sky were covering Kirk. Recklessly, Kirk snapped, "Get a security team up here..." before Chekov knocked him out of his seat with a blow from the butt of his phaser. He counted to five slowly and signalled to Dunitz to reopen the channel.

"Mister Scott..."

"What's going on up there?"

Chekov spoke carefully, as if being prompted. "They are holding us hostage, Mister Scott. The captain is injured and they are threatening to kill him. They have auxiliary control also. They say that they will kill the captain if you do not maintain Warp 8."

"Who are they? How many..." Chekov signalled 'off' to Dunitz, just as Spock yelled "Mister Scott!"

A palpable silence descended on the bridge. Then Kirk moaned.

"Get a medic up here, at least," Sulu pleaded. Chekov looked at him thoughtfully. "You check him over."

Sulu shook his head in disbelief, but got on with it.

Uhura was sitting with her back against the bulkhead below the screen, her eyes shut. Ensign Hartley looked as though she was in a state of shock. Sulu finished his examination and stood up to confront Chekov.

"Get Doctor McCoy up here."

"Why?"

"His pulse is weak. He's in shock, even if he isn't concussed."

Chekov tried to assess whether Sulu was lying. In the past he would have known. It was so difficult... On reflection he wasn't sure whether he was prepared to take the risk of leaving Kirk unattended whatever Sulu's opinion. Although he fought to conceal it, he was still shaking with reaction from hitting Kirk.

"Open a channel to sick bay," he told Dunitz.

"Is that sensible?" Nede demanded.

Chekov ignored him. "McCoy here," the Doctor said briskly, obviously alerted by Scott to the situation on the bridge.

"Doctor McCoy, the captain is injured. Not seriously, I think. Can you come to the bridge alone, please."

"On my way."

Dunitz left communications to help Sky cover the lift, but when McCoy arrived he was alone as instructed. He went straight to Kirk without looking around the bridge. It took less than two minutes for him to satisfy himself that Kirk was in no serious danger and dress the burns on his hand and wrist. As he worked, Chekov watched calmly, but as the Doctor finished he asked without thinking, "How is he, Doctor?" McCoy turned away from his patient, starting to answer, and caught sight of the phaser in Chekov's hand. "What in God's name is going on here?"

"You don't need to know, Doctor. Just answer my question."

McCoy pointedly took several seconds checking Kirk's readings again before obeying. Like everyone else on the bridge, he obviously intended to let it be known that he followed Chekov's orders under protest.

"Well, the captain will survive. He'll be out for a while yet, I expect. Perhaps someone would like to explain to me what's happening?" He waited a moment and prompted, "Mister Sulu?"

"Chekov.. ah... took over the bridge twenty minutes ago, Doctor, and ordered us to head for the Romulan Neutral Zone at Warp 8."

"I see. Was this entirely your own idea, Chekov, or did your friends here make any contribution?"

Chekov knew that McCoy was trying to rile him, and worse, that he would probably succeed. He grinned at McCoy, deciding that the best defence was offence in this case. "I'm only obeying orders, Doctor. The originality comes in deciding how to spend the bounty."

McCoy was silent for a moment, and Chekov returned the bulk of his attention to Spock. The Vulcan was by far the most likely person to cut through the distraction of the hijack to Chekov's underlying purpose. He was also physically the most dangerous person on the bridge. Chekov was relying on a series of distractions to keep him preoccupied, and he suspected that Spock was too well practised in ignoring McCoy for the Doctor to prove useful in that respect.

Jadis spoke up on cue. "We are showing a deviation from our intended course."

Chekov knew that the deviation originated in auxiliary control, where he had programmed it in disguised as a systems malfunction. He reckoned it would take Spock ten minutes at most to pinpoint the problem and not much more to realise that it was faked. It was possible he would attribute the malfunction to an attempt at sabotage by Mister Scott, but Chekov intended to have the next diversion in operation by then. He looked over Jadis' shoulder and plotted the necessary corrections. "Please investigate, Mister Spock."

"Certainly," Spock replied.

"Certainly," McCoy mimicked. "I wouldn't get too comfortable with this set up, Spock. I imagine Ensign Chekov's career with Starfleet may be drawing to its conclusion."

"I don't see why, Doctor. Apart from those present on this bridge, nobody knows that I am involved. If I were the only survivor..."

"You rat!" Ensign Hartley spat and burst into tears. Chekov ignored her. These emotional games kept most of the crew occupied but Spock was giving his undivided attention to his computer. In just over six minutes it would be necessary to stage a major diversion, and as Ensign Hartley was already in tears, prematurely by Chekov's reckoning, a slight change of plan was called for. Chekov summoned Nede. "Not the Ensign. Lieutenant Uhura," he muttered. Nede laughed out loud and returned to his watch on Spock. He began asking questions, carefully pitched at just the right level of understanding to trigger Spock into a patient and thorough explanation. Chekov had used the technique more than once to deflect attention from an error on his part. It never worked for long, but he only needed minutes now.

McCoy was comforting Ensign Hartley, talking softly to her and concentrating on her face as if trying to tease a smile. Sulu and Uhura were also talking together. Chekov decided they had better be broken up.

"Lieutenant!" They both looked up. Uhura's face was carefully expressionless but Sulu wore a hard, angry look. It cut through the slight adrenaline high that was carrying Chekov through what amounted, basically, to an unpleasant practical joke.

"Show her how to operate the shields," he snapped, gesturing at Jadis. "We may need them."

Sulu got to his feet and faced his friend. "No. You may need them. I can't see that it makes any difference to us."

"Please do as he says, Mister Sulu," Spock put in calmly.

Sulu took no notice. "What are you going to do if I won't?"

Chekov sighed. "Show her myself, I suppose." He checked by feel that his phaser was once again set to stun, and raised it...

"Mister Sulu, that was an order."

"Yes, sir!" As he walked round to the Navigator's position next to Jadis, Sulu met Chekov's gaze with his own. "I can't believe you really mean it. I don't understand how you can do this, how you can sell us out like this." He threw himself into the seat and started explaining the controls for the shields, angrily at first, then calmly and eventually as if instructing a nervous cadet. For a couple of minutes the quiet drone of his voice, and that of Spock elaborating on some fine point of navigational control to Nede were the only sounds on the bridge. Then Nede asked another question, carefully designed to show that he had not been listening to the previous two answers. Spock swallowed hard and said loudly, "Mister Chekov, if you require an answer to your problem before we reach the neutral zone, perhaps you would ask your comrade to allow me to work in peace." Every member of the Enterprise crew stared at him as if he had thrown a tantrum.

"Find yourself something else to do, Nede."

"Okay, boss." Nede looked around the bridge thoughtfully. "Can't we get some coffee from anywhere up here? Lieutenant Uhura, why don't you find us all something to drink?"

Uhura patiently took orders from everyone and delivered the cups, finishing with a black coffee for Nede. He sat down on the step by the captain's chair. "Won't you join me, Lieutenant?"

"No, thank you."

Chekov checked the bridge chronometer. Dead on target.

"Sit down, Lieutenant," Nede insisted.

Chekov fought back a wave of nausea. Just do what you have to. Don't go a micron further.

He willed the thought desperately at Nede, but inevitably there was no response. The flat mental silence that had enclosed him for the last two days continued unbroken.

He deliberately turned his back on his most immediate concern and walked over to where the captain lay. He looked less unconscious now than asleep, despite the red weal across his right temple and cheek. The pallor of shock had been replaced by a more normal colour.

Suddenly Uhura yelped and the sharp crack of fist on jaw snapped out. Chekov spun round to find Nede rubbing his face, and Uhura backed up against Spock's console, breathing fast.

Spock had laid an inconspicuous, comforting hand on hers. Outwardly, she appeared icily furious.

"Mister Chekov, kindly tell your lizard to keep his hands off me."

Nede growled as he stood up and went to grab Uhura's arm, his phaser now at the ready.

An inarticulate protest sounded from McCoy, Sulu and Hartley, from the last almost a sob.

Chekov suddenly realised that he couldn't go through with any more of this.

"Leave her alone, Nede."

"But..."

"Leave her!"

He looked at the chronometer. Five more minutes until they were safe. Ten would be better.

Three of them passed in uneasy silence.

Kirk started to stir and McCoy stood up. "May I?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"Take it easy, Captain, you've had a blow to the head. Don't try to..."

Even as McCoy said it, Kirk was sitting up. He looked round his bridge, registering phasers, strangers and groaned. "What's happening now?"

Everyone looked at Chekov, but his heart had gone out of the performance. He simply nodded at Spock. "Tell him, please."

Spock regarded Chekov carefully for a moment, as if fitting another piece of data into a difficult puzzle. "We have been heading at Warp 8 towards the Romulan Neutral zone for the last 45.4 minutes, Captain."

"Oh, yes. I remember now. You never told us why, Chekov. I hadn't heard of any friendship between the Shookah and the Romulans."

"There isn't any, to my knowledge."

"So this is purely personal, is it?"

"I don't have to explain myself to you."

"I can't believe that you intend to hand us over to the Romulans."

"You don't have to believe it."

"Why don't you think again, before this has gone too far?" A slightly desperate note was beginning to creep into Kirk's voice. Chekov couldn't tell if it was worry at what was ahead or a last bid by whatever lay shrouded at the centre of the Nebula to retain its prize. "If you let us go now, I'm sure we can work out something for you and your friends. It's still over sixteen hours to the neutral zone. A lot can go wrong in that time. I don't suppose Mister Scott is exactly idle. He will have alerted Starfleet by now and you'll have to run a gauntlet of starships to get anywhere near the border." Kirk turned his attention to the Shookah. "He's going to get us all killed. There's still time for you to get out of this."

Nede smiled calmly. "You'd better shut up, Captain. You're just frightening the children. We know exactly what we're doing, from start to finish. If you all do as you're told, there's absolutely no need for anyone to get hurt."

Kirk glanced quickly round at Sulu, McCoy and Hartley, as if making a head count, or acknowledging them before some of them fell. There were six of them, to five of the Shookah, including Chekov. Kirk had reached the point where he was prepared to make sacrifices. He turned back to Chekov.

"Stay where you are, Captain." Chekov lifted his phaser, meaning to even the numerical imbalance, or tip it in his favour. But he was tired, he'd been chasing details for the last twenty-four hours, and in a sudden moment of blind panic, he could neither remember nor detect whether the unfamiliar weapon was set safely on stun. Kirk spotted the hesitation and threw himself at Chekov, driving him into the railing around the upper deck. As the others surged to his aid, Sky stunned McCoy and Hartley and spun to train his weapon on Kirk. Jadis and Nede never wavered for a moment from covering the remaining Enterprise personnel. They didn't even turn to see what was happening. Kirk cursed their unlooked for discipline and concentration. He was pinning Chekov to the deck, with a phaser to the ensign's head, but unless Sky was willing to bargain for Chekov's life, he'd gained nothing. He just hoped that Sky appreciated the fact that he could get off a fatal shot before the Shookah could stun him, and a stun was all Sky could risk while he held Chekov this close.

"Hand that phaser over, Captain. I can assure you that I will not hesitate to fire. Pavel is not one of us, and I'm quite happy to see you shoot him." Even though Chekov had written that line into the script himself, reckoning that sooner or later someone would attempt to get a drop on him, it sent a shiver through him. This far on, he still didn't know if he trusted Sky, or any of them.

Kirk prolonged the moment, weighing up the overwhelming need to get his ship back and turn round against all the lesser priorities, like keeping his crew safe, doing something about the pounding agony in his head, checking that McCoy and Hartley were okay, killing these expletive deleted Shookah... Rage and desperation, not his, but from somewhere outside him, seized him and he struck Chekov a shattering one handed blow across the face. The force of it slammed the ensign back against the deck, so that his head rebounded with a sickening crack. Keeping close in to his hostage, Kirk gave up trying to determine by touch what the setting was on his appropriated weapon. "I wonder if you really mean that..."

"Captain, don't!" Spock's voice rang out into the shocked silence.

Kirk suddenly looked bemused and disorientated. He turned toward Spock, and Chekov grabbed the phaser from him with an outrush of pent up breath, then used the railing to pull himself up, pale and shaking, looking at Kirk as if he'd just come face to face with Kodos the Executioner. He was back in control, but he didn't have a clue what to do about it.

"Shall I stun him, Pavel?" Sky prompted gently. The ensign glanced up at the chronometer and shook his head. Then he winced.

"No. Dunitz, tell auxiliary control to surrender and restore communications."

"Sir," Dunitz snapped, still into the role play. After making the necessary connections he put his phaser down. The remaining mutineers followed his example.

Kirk stared at them all for a moment, then walked uncertainly over to his seat and opened the intercom. "Security to the bridge, now." Sulu had already started gathering up the abandoned weapons and as Dunitz and Jadis moved aside, Uhura returned to her station as if nothing had happened. Hartley and McCoy were already recovering from the light stun, and McCoy helped the young navigator into her seat.

"Shall I put us back on our previous course, Captain?" Hartley enquired, rather diffidently. It didn't seem the best moment to ask, but she didn't feel comfortable heading for Romulan space at such a lick.

"Just hold our present position, Ensign." Kirk felt that he couldn't, just at this moment, remember quite what their previous course had been.

"I think, Captain, it would be prudent to remain exactly where we are until we have had an opportunity to clarify the situation." Spock laid heavy emphasis on the exactly.

Sulu came round behind Chekov with his collection of phasers and handed them over to Larson as he emerged from the lift with a team of four guards. "All set on stun," he said, half as a question, "except this one." He glanced up accusingly at Nede, and then back down at the indicator which clearly showed the weapon was useless. Then he shrugged, and looked at Chekov for an explanation, only to be ignored. Since he wasn't needed at his post, he remained standing next to the ensign.

"Okay, Larson, take them down to the brig. Have you got the rest out of auxiliary control?"

"Like lambs, sir." The security team herded its prisoners towards the lift. It didn't occur to them to take Chekov, and Kirk let the omission go uncorrected. He had some questions for the ensign. The Shookah went without protest, but as Nede entered the lift he suddenly said, "I said I'd tell you when I found out, Pavel. But I don't think you need me to tell you." Then the doors shut with a whisper. Chekov could feel everyone's hostility like a tangible thing.

He stared at the ceiling to make it go away. Oddly, relief at the success of his plan had immediately soured into something akin to shock. Double vision added itself to his list of problems.

"What did he mean?" Kirk demanded.

"What I really am." It sounded as if Chekov was thinking aloud rather than answering.

"Mister Chekov, that was a most effective strategy." Spock had left his station and moved quietly to stand beside Kirk. The captain was staring at Chekov in grim silence.

"I didn't realise you were taking lessons in sarcasm, Spock," McCoy complained.

"I was not being sarcastic, Doctor. The ensign has extricated us from a situation of some danger. The method he chose was somewhat traumatic but before you criticise his technique you should perhaps ask yourself what we were doing within an area which is off limits to Federation vessels."

McCoy's reaction was puzzlement. "Jim?"

Kirk looked unsure of himself, obviously searching for an answer to Spock's question. His head was still aching thunderously from Chekov's pistol-whipping. He eventually gave up the attempt to sort the problem out for himself. "Okay, Spock, what were we doing inside the K4 Nebula and what has this got to do with Chekov?"

"The number of vessels which have disappeared within the Nebula, up until the last thirty years when the risk has been appreciated and the area has generally been considered off limits, would suggest that there is some mechanism in operation within and around the Nebula which exerts some form of physical or mental attraction on passing ships. I am not aware of experiencing any such effect, but I am aware that over the past two days my behaviour has not been consistent with Starfleet regulations concerning restricted areas. Nor has yours, Captain. Furthermore, no officer, other than Mister Chekov, has queried our actions. It is not inconceivable that certain persons on board should be immune to the effect, and it appears to be the case that our passengers are indeed able to resist it. Fortunately for us. Obviously, in this one respect, Mister Chekov has more in common with the Shookah than with the rest of us."

"Is that so, Mister Chekov?" Kirk asked, in a more gentle tone.

"Captain?" Chekov just wanted to crawl away and go to sleep.

"Ensign, you have just engineered a mutiny, hijacked my ship, fired on me, knocked me unconscious, threatened my crew and apparently attempted to sell us down the river to the Romulans. I am beginning to lose my temper." He paused to let the irony soak in. "Were you aware that we were subject to some form of external compulsion to enter the K4 Nebula?"

"Yes, Captain."

"But you were not yourself subject to that compulsion?"

"No, Captain."

"And you set up this... incident... to get us back out of the Nebula?"

"Yes, Captain. You can't believe..."

"None of us is at all eager to believe that you would betray us, with or without the help of the Shookah."

"Jim, don't push him. He's near to breaking point. There's something else wrong here."

McCoy reached to take Chekov's arm, but the ensign shrugged him off. "Captain, if you've finished for now, I'll take him down to sickbay."

"I haven't finished, Doctor."

"No, but he is. Come on, Ensign, I think you need some rest."

Chekov followed McCoy unquestioningly to the lift. The doctor stopped by the doors and waved the ensign past him. "I know it's not logical," and here he paused to scowl at Spock out of habit, "but just because he had to convince us he was betraying us, that doesn't mean he has to enjoy the fact that we could be convinced."

As his chief surgeon and navigator vanished Kirk stared momentarily at the stars, motionless on the view screen.

"Spock, are you sure that Chekov did set this up for the reasons you suggest?"

"I have been since before he surrendered the ship, which he did the moment we were beyond the influence of the Nebula. That surrender was itself entirely voluntary."

"Then why is he behaving like this now?"

"Stress. Our passengers have undoubtedly had some profound effect on him, which he has been fighting. This may explain his ability to withstand the Nebula."

"How?" Kirk demanded.

"There is some speculation that the Shookah utilise unusual telepathic powers amongst themselves. In attempting to resist those, Chekov might have erected mental barriers. Or they may have the ability to erect such barriers in others themselves. It is possible that as a side effect he became resistant to the influence of the Nebula. In which case we would have reason to be grateful to our passengers."

"They tried to warn me about it," Kirk exclaimed. "I'd forgotten, or blocked it out or something, but Nede warned me."

"And you did not listen, so they went where they would receive a sympathetic hearing, or at least an open-minded one."

Kirk accepted the rebuke. He couldn't deny that he'd been prepared to dislike the Shookah before they even came aboard, nor that he had reacted to Chekov's link with the people by allowing his prejudices to spill over into his attitude to the Ensign. He realised suddenly that his officers all looked drained and uncomfortable, and that his own injuries were demanding attention. "Get the Beta shift up here, Mister Sulu, and tell Security to, no, belay that. I'll go and spring the prisoners myself."

Kirk walked tiredly off the bridge. Since, by implication, Sulu had been given the conn, he took the centre chair and logged the change.

Ensign Hartley turned round in her seat and asked hesitantly, "Why did he have to be so... cruel?"

"I would suggest, Ensign," Spock replied, shutting down his computer terminal and turning to face her, "that had the threat he presented not appeared credible, we would all have concentrated on the immediate issue. That is, that we were leaving the Nebula. In particular he went to great lengths to keep me occupied on various levels." That would be why Chekov directed the greater part of his actual violence at the captain, although Spock did not say so. "Also, from our past experience, it should be apparent to all of us that the captain is prepared to tolerate a considerable level of personal discomfort in order to protect this ship." Spock calmly left the bridge, giving not a hint of his own discomfort at being so efficiently manipulated, on both the logical and emotional levels, by a mere human.

***

It seemed to McCoy that Chekov had gone on to auto pilot, letting the doctor steer him into sickbay, and making monosyllabic answers to McCoy's questions that verged on the irrelevant. He waved a hand in front of the ensign's face and Chekov blinked. "I'm sorry, Doctor..."

"Don't be. I was just checking you were still here. Sit down." A hypo hissed, pushing home a stimulant. The boy needed a rest, but first McCoy had to work out what was wrong.

"Now, tell me everything, from the beginning."

When Kirk put his head round the door an hour later, McCoy was just dimming the lights.

He nodded over at Chekov, who was still deep in conversation with another visitor. "I want you asleep in five minutes, Ensign. Don't wind him up, Jim."

Both men turned to acknowledge the captain, and Kirk felt a stab of concern when he realised that the visitor was Larson. "Commander, can't it wait until tomorrow?"

Larson looked offended. "I wasn't interrogating him, Captain. Doctor McCoy wouldn't let me." He turned back to the ensign. "Now would be a good time."

"For what?" Kirk was totally lost.

"I would like to transfer to security, just for a while, Captain. For the experience."

"Well, I'll talk to the Commander about it." Kirk had a way of looking at you that made it clear you should be somewhere else. Larson took the hint. "I'll see you around, kid. Sir."

Kirk took the Security Chief's place. "You did a good job."

"I'm sorry I..."

"Did what you had to? I nearly killed you. At least you had yourself under control. Mister Spock tells me some people believe the Shookah are telepathic..."

"Have you let them out of the brig?"

"Of course. And I've turned a blind eye to all the havoc they committed to keep Security busy while you were running rings round us on the bridge. How much of that were you responsible for?"

"I gave them a few ideas."

"And you can read their minds, and vice versa?"

"No." But it was a half lie, and he couldn't tolerate it. "Not any more."

"Then how come the nebula didn't affect you like the rest of us?"

"They can block - whatever it is. As well as receiving it. They've blocked me. I can't hear them, or anything else. It's like being in a room with someone and only being able to talk to them on subspace."

Kirk wasn't sure he understood what Chekov meant, but he nodded nonetheless. "Why did they do that?"

"Because I didn't want to be one of them. Now I don't feel as if I'm one of anything."

Kirk beckoned to McCoy. "I'm not following you. You can't communicate telepathically with the Shookah, but..."

The Doctor sat down on the next bed. "Let me explain, Jim. I guess, and I can't check this now, that until that Klingon deafened him, Chekov was marginally telepathic. Not by any mechanism we can measure, and not consciously. Using it the same way you or I read body language. Now he's lost it. Imagine you suddenly had to communicate with everyone by written notes, the inflections you'd miss, the clues that aren't in the words. It was damn lucky for us they did it, or we'd be one more statistic at Lloyds, but I wish I knew how to reverse it."

"If it was physical damage..."

McCoy shook his head. "It didn't happen when Nede hit him. He was fine until about an hour afterwards."

"You could ask the Klingon how to reverse it."

McCoy sighed. "I know they helped to get us out of this mess but only because they were in it too. I've learnt in the past, you never ask a Shookah for anything. They'll take your life savings, and then it'll turn out they can't deliver anyway. Knowing them, they'll sell me some moonshine that'll only make things worse..."

Kirk got up and walked over to the intercom.

"Nede? This is Captain Kirk. Could you join me in sickbay, please?"

"Well, I warned you." McCoy stalked off to his office.

Chekov was lying on his side, staring at the wall as if this was nothing to do with him. Kirk made a point of coughing to get his attention

"What's the sudden attraction of Security?"

"It's all the parts of Starfleet I'm no good at."

"That's what Larson thinks?" Kirk's smile was crooked. "I must admit, I can't follow the logic of trying to assemble the worst possible security team."

"I still don't know what Commander Larson's reasons are, Captain."

"I suspect his reasons have a lot to do with the fact that he doesn't think I let him do his job. If he pinches all my best officers he can set up in opposition. And you seem to have a certain talent for organisation and leadership. Well, if you want to."

"Thank you, Captain."

"Thank you. Now you'd better get some sleep, before McCoy gets any more annoyed with me."

He turned the light down a last notch and stepped over to join McCoy. To his surprise, the Klingon was already in the doctor's office, watching his host pour him a large brandy. Kirk raised his eyebrows and McCoy scowled and fetched a third glass.

"Firstly, I want to apologise, for not listening to your original warning..."

"I don't think you had any choice."

"I'm not sure it would have made any difference if I had. And I wanted to thank you for helping Mister Chekov get us out of there."

The Klingon nodded modestly.

"But we still have a problem."

"You mean Pavel? He's your problem. Let the dead bury their dead."

"You can't..."

"He consistently denied being one of us. In the end we did what he wanted all along. We shut him out. Now he's a giaour. The end. I don't see any difficulty."

"You haven't just taken away what makes him like you. What you've done is like amputating someone's legs because they don't want to play football. You've crippled him." Kirk felt the force of McCoy's anger buffeting him but Nede seemed unaffected.

"You want him to enjoy the benefits without accepting the responsibilities? How very like a Shookah, Doctor. I thought that was one of your chief objections to us. Along with not having regular medical check ups. Or are you more annoyed that our children are stubbornly healthy without them?"

Kirk scowled at McCoy, who swallowed whatever retort sprang to his lips.

"Can you reverse whatever you did?" Kirk asked, coolly.

"Of course I can."

"Jim..."

"Then please do it."

Nede looked surprised. "No appeals to my better nature? No offers of payment? You're not going to point out to me that he did everything to stand up for us short of actually letting his sister marry one of us?"

Kirk shook his head and the Klingon tossed back the brandy. "He'll adapt. Give him six months and you'll never know there was anything wrong."

McCoy exploded. "Is that based on experience? How many people have you done this to?"

"Consider the practicalities, Doctor." The Klingon was becoming icier as McCoy heated up. "Would you tolerate someone being able to read your mind, your every thought and mood, if you didn't feel that person was utterly committed to you?"

"He was as loyal to you as he could be. A good deal more than you deserved."

"And fortunately it never came to a straight choice, did it, because we all saw which way you thought he'd jump."

"That isn't fair." Kirk said, very quietly.

"I know. It rarely is." Nede stood up. "I'm afraid you're wasting your time, though. I've never tried to reverse it. I don't think I can."

"But you said..."

"I know. I just hate admitting I can't do anything. Won't I don't mind. Can't I detest. I'm sorry. I really am sorry. He would have been a good Shookah if you hadn't nobbled him first."

McCoy and Kirk watched the Klingon's back out of sick bay.

"You were right, Bones."

"No. I think he meant it. He'd put it right if he could. I just hope he's right about the possibility of adapting. It's a little difficult to believe anything he says. You'd think living with people who can read your mind, you'd get into the habit of telling the truth." McCoy poured himself some brandy and after a quick glance at Kirk poured him one too.

"Get Spock in here."

The doctor looked up, startled. "You think he can do something?"

"I think he can try. I didn't get the impression that Chekov is exactly happy about his present condition."

"I don't know." McCoy looked uncomfortable. "This mind-meld business, we've used it in emergencies, sure, but we don't really understand it. I'm not even sure that Chekov will be too keen..."

"Can you do anything?"

"I can't detect that anything's wrong. I don't know where to start."

"Then at least ask Spock. If Chekov doesn't want to, he doesn't have to. All we're offering him is the possibility."

***

Chekov slept late the following morning, waking only when the first rush of busyness in sick bay was over. His head ache had gone, and he lay quietly, feeling an unaccustomed reluctance to start the day. Eventually boredom won out over lethargy and he pulled himself up onto one elbow to see who was about. To his surprise, the only person in sick bay apart from himself was Spock.

"Sir?"

"Ensign. I trust you are feeling rested."

"Yes, sir."

"I'll tell the doctor that you have awoken."

Chekov sat up as Spock left the room. His heart was beating fast and hard. If Spock was here, it meant that something was wrong. That he had to be watched for some reason. Had the Shookah done something else? Had they somehow fallen back into the trap of the nebula?

When Spock returned, his calm expression lulled the worst of Chekov's fears, leaving only a faint unease.

"What's wrong, Mister Spock?"

"You have been disabled, by the actions of the Shookah. The captain is... We are all concerned that this disability may be serious, that you may be unable to compensate adequately for it."

"You're saying that I can't stay in Starfleet?"

"Before we consider any such improbable consequences, I thought you might prefer to explore the possibility of a straightforward remedy."

"Sir?"

"A Vulcan mind meld, Ensign. It seems possible that the Klingon simply switched off some transmitting and receiving mechanism in your brain. We have to consider the possibility that he damaged or destroyed it, but it seems logical to commence with the first scenario. Using Vulcan touch telepathy I can retrace the mechanism by which your brain communicated with the Shookah, and maybe identify the switch."

"You mean you could replay some of the thoughts I picked up from them?" Chekov did a quick rerun, and realised that once he'd thought of it, there was no way he could keep the memory of Jadis out of his head. Or Harmony, for that matter. He knew that Spock harboured no illusions about the way his human colleagues' minds worked, but to actually know that the Vulcan knew... it would be infinitely worse than having a diary, or private letters read. He'd never be able to work with the Science Officer again. "I don't think I want to do that, Mister Spock. I'm very grateful, but..."

"There is a tendency among humans to regard the mind-meld as something of a party trick. I can assure you it is not. The experience is disorientating, sometimes even distressing. It is also always a two way communication. You would learn as much about me as I would about you. Vulcans are in many ways more private than humans, although you seem to assume that we have nothing to be private about. I am not eager to do this, but nor am I content to see your career, and your personal happiness, suffer because we would not make the attempt. Therefore I make the offer. I cannot guarantee any success."

Chekov pulled his knees up and hugged them, touched beyond words by Spock's suggestion, but still reluctant to accept it. "I don't think you'll like what you find inside my head."

"In as much as you are presently frightened, lonely and emotionally isolated, I am sure you are correct."

"I... yes. Thank you."

He looked up into Spock's calm, brown eyes and let himself fall into them as the Vulcan placed his fingertips on his face. They were unnaturally warm, and the immediate sensation of tumbling into another time and space seemed unconnected with the physical contact. He floundered in a place with no recognisable references, and grabbed the first memory that came within his grasp. A room he remembered standing in, a bunk room at the Academy.

Had Spock been there too? Had Chekov ever been there? He traced the memory back and forward, found friends, humans treated at first with suspicion, then accepted as equals-but-different. From that point he worked outwards, through other experiences that tallied with his own, while being utterly different. He meant to call a halt as he worked too near to the present, to stop short of the Vulcan's first encounters with current colleagues, but he didn't time it quite right.

"That's him, the Vulcan." Someone had said it in tones meant to be private, but audible of course to Vulcan ears. Finding that people were talking about him wasn't a new experience to Spock. He was very good at ignoring it but he felt a surge of curiosity when he heard the voice that answered. It was a voice he recognised from tapes, although he hadn't yet met the owner.

"Spock? I thought he was half human? He looks Vulcan through and through to me."

Spock still didn't turn from the view of the shuttle pad outside the big window. Every thirty seconds or so one of the little craft took off. The soundproofing was excellent, but the faint vibration tickled at his nerve ends. Or should he admit to himself that the prospect of meeting James Kirk, that most human, through and through, of Starfleet officers, was making him nervous? He came to a sudden, illogical conviction. He would indeed be utterly Vulcan. Eleven years among humans, learning to trust them, to trust Christopher Pike in particular, had rounded his hard Vulcan edges. This new beginning was an opportunity to stop the rot. Spock turned, his face composed into a glacial mask, and the image of Kirk, hastily forming a smile for his new Science Officer, imprinted itself on his brain.

Chekov flung the memory away from him, turning back into the past, childhood, and some experiences that were alien, while others were as familiar as his own skin.

"Mister Chekov? Ensign?" Someone was shaking his shoulder and he blinked his eyes open, knowing before he did so that it was McCoy. Spock was standing a few paces away, his face pale but composed. It was Spock who had spoken. Chekov knew, although the Vulcan's face didn't show it, that Spock was pleased with what he had been able to do. He still had to wait to see if it had been successful.

And we're pleased, too.

Nede?

Welcome back.

"Pavel? Are you okay?" McCoy's anxiety suddenly hit like a storm. He was as hyper-sensitive to the doctor's mind as someone walking out of a cave would be to the daylight.

"Yes. I am all right, I think."

"Did it work? Can you tell?"

"Yes, it did. I can..." He shut his eyes experimentally. "You're still there, even when I can't see you." Opening them again, he smiled at Spock. "Thank you, sir."

The Vulcan nodded gravely. "There is no need to thank me. The experience was not unpleasant."

***

Chekov let his duty roster scroll up the screen, his eyes focused beyond the words, on the reflection of a red security section tunic. He was having difficulty believing he'd done it.

He turned back to the letter he was writing, actually writing, with a pen dug out of the bottom of his kit bag, on proper paper begged from Uhura. The lightweight stationery that stores grudgingly handed out for hard copy didn't seem appropriate somehow. The even curves of the Cyrillic script looped reassuringly like well-drilled soldiers.

To my dearest Mama and Papa,

We will be at Starbase Eleven tomorrow, and I will mail this there, so you should receive it in a couple of weeks.

I have had to change my leave plans. I may not be home for Christmas this year, although I may see you sooner. This is because I have moved sections. Don't worry - but I have transferred to Security. Pour Mama a glass of wine, Papa, and give her a hug from me. I'm very happy about this. It's a good move for the experience, and will give me more responsibility. My new CO, Lt. Comm. Larson, is very capable, and I'll be working with John Reeves - you remember I told you about him at the Academy?

I have a lot to tell you when I see you, but not now - you'll worry if you can't see that I'm alive and well despite everything. Do you remember me mentioning someone called Harmony Beale at Command School? Her brother is aboard at the moment. She died about eighteen months ago, on Youghal Nine. It has been...

He picked up the pen again.

...interesting, to meet him. It brought back a lot of memories.

I can't believe that I have been here for six months. It feels like a lifetime sometimes, or only a few days. I still miss you very much, but I think I really belong here now. The captain even said that he would miss me on the bridge. I wonder. He was pleased about something I did the other day, but mostly I think I just irritate him...

His door chimed. "Come in."

Sulu was silhouetted against the bright light of the corridor. He came across to the desk, his hands cupped round something. His face was split with a grin, and his eyes were laughing.

"Voila!" He opened his hands and tipped a tiny, perfect dragon out onto the desk. It beat its soft, opal wings for a moment, then sat down and looked at the ensign forlornly out of enormous jet eyes. After a moment it sighed. A smell of scorched paper wafted up.

"How many hatched?"

"All five. They said we can keep one as a mascot. We're all arguing about names."

"It's beautiful, but is it old enough to be away from its mother?" He moved his hands slowly away from it, concerned that it might pounce like a kitten.

"We had to take them away. She was chasing them. Jenny's feeding them pulped meat. They're about an hour old. Hey..." The lieutenant leaned over and turned on the main light in the cabin. He eyed the ensign thoughtfully. "Are you really sure this is a good idea? Red doesn't suit you."

"It's too late to change my mind now. I'm on the rota." Chekov pointed at the screen and Sulu smiled.

"Then it must be true. You will come and help when DeSalle gets us lost? And you'd better come back in one piece at the end."

"It's only six months, Sulu. I'll do my best. I need to get this letter finished..."

"Oh, sure." He scooped up the dragon again, murmuring reassurances to it. Chekov looked doubtfully at the helmsman's bare hands, but didn't comment. As the door closed, he read through the last couple of lines, and wrote:

The scorch marks were made by a dragon. I'm not making this up...

THE END