Chekov poured a mug of strong, sweet coffee, and sat down at the gleamingly clean table. The really ridiculous thing was, he told himself, that forcing people to manually prepare food from natural raw ingredients had to be more costly, in storage, energy, working space and so on, than simply using synthesizers. So much so, in fact, that almost only luxury craft would have the facilities. His mind ran off into differential mass calculations for the Enterprise on the basis of having traditional catering facilities, and the manpower to run them. It was only when he made the relevant adjustment for the time Mister Scott spent tinkering with the settings on the synthesizers to try and please everyone that he realised what he was doing, or more exactly, what he wasn't.

He took a swig of the coffee and forced himself to enjoy the taste. His first few hours this morning, ever since Goudchaux roused him from what sleep the cold, hard floor of his cell allowed, had been amazingly painless. The entire crew of the ship had been preoccupied with something, had told him briskly what they wanted for breakfast and let him get on with making it. Esme, the medic, had even said thank you, while the rest had simply acted as if he wasn't there. This state of affairs was tolerable, if intensely humiliating. The trouble was, it was about as good as it was likely to get. He strongly suspected that he was being left in peace only because they had something better to do, and that if he continued to obey the rules, someone would simply change them.

So, he needed a strategy, a game plan, so that he wasn't just reacting arbitrarily to their stimuli. He couldn't devise a plan that would protect Scott, because they wouldn't let him. So he wouldn't try. He couldn't even minimise the engineer's suffering, because that would only draw attention to the occasions when he thought the benefits outweighed the disadvantages. He paused to admire his own cold-bloodedness, and wondered what the Captain would think of it, or Doctor McCoy, if he should ever get the chance to repair the damage. Not much, probably. Never mind. It was the best he could do for now. The one thing that was fairly clear was that Goudchaux and his crew had gone to some trouble to capture Scott and himself, but they didn't really seem to have anything particular in mind for Chekov, so presumably it was Scott they wanted. Therefore they wouldn't kill him. Therefore, if he could manage it, he shouldn't worry about Scott's ultimate safety, at least for now. Of course they might decide to use the threat of pain against Chekov directly, but that too could be borne if the benefits were sufficient.

Now, the question was, what benefits were sufficient...

"I'm talking to you, Starfleet scum!" Khwaja's fist pounded down on the table with such force that it bounced the coffee mug off onto the floor. Chekov scrambled to his feet.

"I'm sorry, Mister Khwaja."

"Oh, you've spilt your coffee. I'm sorry. I can wait while you clean it up..."

"Thank you." Chekov turned towards the kitchen hygiene unit to fetch a sponge.

"...with your tongue."

Chekov's stomach turned over, and the inside of his mouth suddenly felt dry and furry.

He knew that, if he obeyed, it would only be a matter of time before Khwaja pushed him further, and further, until he found something that the ensign wouldn't do. But at least if he obeyed now, he could reduce the total number of occasions when he actually hit that point.

If he could take long enough over licking the galley floor clean, he could put off the crunch point for, maybe, half an hour. It wouldn't have been worth it, even so, if he hadn't just washed the floor to a standard that McCoy would have been more than content with in his operating theatre.

He got down on his knees and lapped at the coffee. It was a surprisingly difficult process. Khwaja started to laugh. After a few square centimetres Chekov developed a knack and had to slow down. There was nothing to be gained by hurrying.

He was nearly finished when he spotted a pair of boots, small, with thin soles and elegant heels.

"I thought we had a Starfleet ensign, not a cat. Should I give it some milk, Chen?"

"That's an idea. I came in here and the animal was sitting up at the table like a sentient being. Find him a couple of old saucers and he can eat in the corner."

Chekov tried to swallow, but his throat muscles had gone into a sort of rictus. However, the floor was clean again and Khwaja seemed pacified for the moment. He stood up. Moray was pouring milk into a shallow metal bowl. She pushed a chair away from the table and sat down with the bowl in her lap. "You must be thirsty. Come here, kitty."

"May I ask a question?"

"Pardon?"

"May I ask a question, please?"

"Of course you may, pet. Since you ask so nicely."

Chekov glanced at Khwaja who was now occupied pouring himself a cup of coffee. "If I do everything you want me to do, will Goudchaux still find an excuse to torture Mister Scott?"

Moray dipped her fingers idly into the milk. "Whatever you do, little kitten, some nasty boy is going to find a reason to make you cry. Now come here and open wide..."

Moray Morgain, Chekov knew as he obediently knelt beside her chair and allowed her to run her moistened fingers over his much abused tongue, was going to be every bit as much of a problem as the inflammable Mister Khwaja. They were the ones who were acting like felines -- bored cats with a helpless little mouse to sharpen their claws on. While the best he could do was to minimise the agony Khwaja could inflict on him to a manageable level, perhaps Morgain's interest in him could be turned to his advantage. Perhaps, he thought, looking into her one blue eye, it wouldn't be a bad thing to have an ally among these pirates.

"Khwaja, Moray, I need you on the bridge." Goudchaux ordered as he entered. He paused to take in the sight of Moray, the dish of milk and Chekov on his knees with her fingers in his mouth.

Morgain rolled her eyes as she put the bowl down on the table. "Just when I was starting to have fun..." she complained as she exited wiping her fingers on her black vest.

"Bye-bye, little kitty," Khwaja taunted in parting.

Goudchaux remained in the doorway as his crew exited past him, surveying the room. Chekov rose self-consciously and placed the saucer of milk and the un-drunk portion of Khwaja's coffee into a disposal unit in the wall. While the pirate made a slow circle of the mess room, Chekov used the bottom of his shirt to wipe away the faint circles of moisture left by both on the otherwise spotless tabletop. He then stepped back and clasping his hands behind his back assumed the same position he would have if his work was being inspected by a superior. If this filthy cossack of a pirate wanted to be treated like an officer, then that -- for now -- was exactly what he was going to get from his captive.

He could see the pirate smile. "Well, now. I was going to come and find fault, but I've never seen the galley look so very shipshape. And you make good coffee. You weren't in the Catering Corps by any chance? Or the Domestic Science Division?"

"No, Captain," he answered, not allowing himself to consider these insults.

"No, of course not. You've just decided that it isn't worth fighting over a few domestic chores. I'll be interested to discover what you do feel you should make a stand over." Goudchaux laughed when Chekov conspicuously failed to meet his eyes. "No, I can't read your mind. I just know how it works. What sort of an ensign are you? I'd say an engineer, but you don't look the part. There's usually something a little absent-minded -- about most engineers. You're a little too sharp, if you don't mind me saying so. So, what are you?"

"A navigator, sir."

"A navigator?" Goudchaux considered this with his head cocked to one side as he seated himself on the table. "Why would my old friend be taking a wet-behind-the-ears navigator to an engineering bash? If you were of the opposite sex I wouldn't ask, but unless my old mate's tastes have changed radically..."

"I work as a navigator at the present, Captain," Chekov took the liberty of interrupting. "However I am required to have knowledge of all functions of the ship. I have no idea what my assignment may be in two years time. Inertial field damping technology has an impact on many..." He trailed off, uncertain whether Goudchaux was really interested and quite suddenly aware that the set of possible fates for one Ensign Chekov two years hence had acquired a new and unexpected cast of characters and locations in the past few hours.

"Very ambitious, aren't you, Chekov. That was your name, wasn't it? What is it? Russian?"

"Yes, sir."

"I had ambitions once. You know what sort of ship the Lydia Lee was? Mister Scott wasn't being quite accurate when he called her part of the Merchant Marine -- although he was right to call her beautiful -- for her kind."

Chekov just stood, politely expectant.

"She was a privateer, you see. Rather like this little scout."

"I don't believe you." Chekov momentarily forgot his act and omitted any honorific.

"What, you mean my old friend hasn't entertained you with tales of his days as a freebooter? Oh, my. It's not like him to let a good yarn stay untold. Maybe I should jog his memory..." Goudchaux caught the flicker of concern on Chekov's face. "Oh, I didn't mean it like that. I just thought he would enjoy telling you himself. Well, another time, maybe." He shook his head at Chekov's still evident scepticism. "Now come here..."

Chekov took a few steps towards him, stopping just out of reach.

"All the way here."

"Yes, Captain."

Goudchaux put his hands on his shoulders and let them rest there for a moment, smiling his frightening smile all the time. Then he spun Chekov round and gave him a violent push towards the wall. Before Chekov could regain his balance, Goudchaux caught his wrists and slapped them up against the bulkhead far enough above his head to be uncomfortable. The bracelets stuck firm. He tried to struggle but the only thing he achieved was to bring the manacles on his ankles into clinging contact with the wall. He was caught like a fly on flypaper. He heard Goudchaux walk away whistling then heard him rummaging noisily through the kitchen equipment. "Miss Morgain wants you in one piece this afternoon, but I don't think I can let you get away with being so irritatingly obedient any longer. Ah, here we are."

Chekov pressed his cheek against the cool metal of the bulkhead and said softly, "Captain..." It was more of a prayer than a plea. Either way, Goudchaux ignored it. The ensign concentrated on the faint vibration of the warp drive. As the discomfort intensified, he began to pick up peaks in the strength of the vibration. One, two, three... one, two, three, four... one, two, three...

Goudchaux's steps returned. His hand, with surprising gentleness, unfastened the collar of his tunic, then with startling violence tore the garment along the seams so that it hung off his back. Chekov decided not to think about this, or speculate on what was coming next. Instead, he chose to think about the irregularity he'd just discovered. Presumably, given his common history with Mister Scott, Goudchaux doubled as the engineer on this trip. Chekov wondered if he knew that his engines were misphased. It was unlikely that the ship's instruments would be reading it yet. Maybe Mister Scott... No. Goudchaux wouldn't have been stupid enough to let the Scotsman near the engines, whatever stories he was peddling Chekov about Scott's past. Perhaps the core was just playing up in sympathy, like the animals in ancient Russian fairy tales, who rallied to the aid of prisoners confined in sorcerer's dungeons.

The faint interference patterns became less predictable then vanished just as Goudchaux pressed the point of something very cold and sharp just below the surface of the skin of his back.

"Ah!" Chekov couldn't suppress a small involuntary cry.

The sharp thing was taken away.

"Did I scare you, or did that hurt?" Goudchaux asked as if he really cared.

"It hurt, sir," Chekov admitted readily.

"You have a low pain threshold," Goudchaux scolded. He then put a straight-edge against Chekov's back and traced a swift line with his sharp-edged tool. "That's not an asset for an officer, is it? Imagine if I were a Klingon. You wouldn't want to be flinching at a tiny cut like that, would you?"

Chekov didn't feel compelled to answer him at this point.

Goudchaux didn't seem to notice. He rapidly traced something with his finger above the line on Chekov's back. "Do you know how to spell my name?"

Chekov knew he was feeling tiny trickles of blood running down his back.

"Spell my name." Goudchaux emphasised his command by puncturing a point to mark where his tracing had left off.

"G...O...D...S...H...A...W," Chekov guessed loudly.

"Not even close." Goudchaux marked another point near the centre of his back. "What's the matter? You gotta use the cyrillic alphabet or something? Never mind, just hold still. I'd hate to mess up and have to start over. Now, tell me what you did on that precious ship of yours."

"Navigator!" Chekov insisted, as Goudchaux re-installed the pointed object into the original puncture he'd made and cut a curving line downward two inches to the guideline he'd traced.

"Never worked in Science, did you?" he asked as he took his line upwards.

"Yes! Yes I have!" Chekov admitted in short gasps. Even backwards he could realise that Goudchaux was working on carving the letter G -- the first letter of the pirate's long and strangely spelt name -- into the skin of his back.

"So, you can operate a tricorder -- even modify its sensitivity if necessary?"

"Yes!" Chekov answered, thinking this was a very stupid question. Any competent Academy graduate could take a standard issue tricorder apart and reassemble it four different ways if needed.

"Do any work in mineralogy?" the pirate asked conversationally. "For instance, would you know how to run a jewelpoint count or a Loodman's assay on tenilium?"

"Yes!"

"That's good to know." Goudchaux moved his instrument to begin work on the letter O. "I certainly hope you're not lying. I hate liars. Now I want you to tell me how you're planning to escape."

Chekov could feel himself growing faint. If he could just hold out a few more minutes, blessed unconsciousness would free him from this torment. "What?"

"Don't tell me you're not planning to escape." Goudchaux used the tail of his shirt to wipe away the film of blood covering his work before he began on the U. "Being cooperative is step one, isn't it? You've decided that you're expendable. If you thought you were of any real value to us, you would have tried to kill yourself by now, wouldn't you? No, you think your only value now is as a potential hero. You're either waiting for or planning an opportunity to free Mister Scott or destroy him. Perhaps you've been so impressed by our hospitality thus far that you're considering ways to destroy us all in one fell blow."

Chekov bit his lip as the pirate started on the slow downstroke of a letter D. In a strange way, he was getting used to the torture. The implement Goudchaux was using was very thin and sharp and the cuts weren't deep. They stung more after the fact than while he was carving. The initial puncture for each letter still hurt though.

"I'll be interested to see what you come up with," Goudchaux continued. "What will it be -- sabotage? Mayhem? Lulling us into a false contentment has proved a little more difficult than you anticipated, hasn't it?"

The door to the mess room opened and someone with a light step entered. "Do you have to do that in here?" Chekov could tell the voice belonged to the medic they called Esme.

"I waited until everyone was through with breakfast," Goudchaux answered, wiping his blade off on Chekov's tunic. "I was just thinking, and you how I like to whittle while I think."

"If you're going to cut him up then cut him into bits I can throw away, rather than ones I have to stitch back together," the medic replied irritably.

Goudchaux laughed as if this were a good joke. "I promised him to you 'til lunch, didn't I?"

"As a worker, not a patient," the old woman complained.

"He's yours until midday." Goudchaux's footsteps paused near the door as he put his instrument of torture in the disposal unit. "But be careful. He's a desperate man with delusions of glory. There's nothing more dangerous."

"You don't have to tell me that," the old woman said to the door after it closed behind him.

***

"He means to kill me, doesn't he?" Chekov asked as the medic hissed the contents of a hypo into his arm. She'd taken him to the small sickbay and covered his wounds with a soothing layer of dermaplast.

"We all die sooner or later," the old woman replied tersely as she helped him into a clean shirt. The garment was plain and black in colour. It fastened at the neck and down each shoulder, under the arms and down each side. In short, it was a garment that would be fairly easy to remove without his active assistance.

"But for me, it's going to be sooner rather than later," he pressed. His only hope he felt now was to find the weak link in Goudchaux's chain of command -- someone who either had sympathy for him or reservations about Goudchaux's aims. With Esme, he'd already seen clear indications of the former and glimmers of the latter.

The old woman walked to the far end of the room and pressed the button that opened the door to a small closet. "This is the supply cabinet. I don't much care how you organise it for now. Anything's going to be an improvement over this mess. Just clean everything off and put things that are the same colour or look alike together."

Chekov got off the table and joined her by the closet. He surveyed what looked to be a formidable task with his hands on his hips. "It looks as though it has been a very long time since Mister Goudchaux has procured an assistant for you."

Avoiding his eyes, she handed him a pair of gloves. "You'll need these."

"How many others have there been?" he asked when their hands briefly made contact over the gloves. "And what happened to them?"

"There's solvents and cleaning solutions in there somewhere," she informed him, returning to her desk as if nothing had been said. "You can ask me about anything you're unsure about how to dispose of, but on the whole I'd prefer it if you didn't talk."

"Why?" Chekov persisted. "Because you don't want to know me, perhaps become attached to me... like you did to them?"

She met his eyes briefly. Despite her stringy dyed black hair and her wrinkles, he could see that she had been beautiful once, as beautiful as Moray Morgain was now. Dropping her eyes, she nodded sharply towards the supply cabinet. "Go on. You haven't got all day."

Chekov wondered exactly how much time he did have as he slipped on the protective gloves. Although the medic's prognosis was not good, the fact that Goudchaux had questioned him about his abilities to perform certain tests did seem encouraging. They were simple tests, though. Anyone with a basic background in science could do them. Besides, he was under the impression that Khwaja was the ship's Science Officer.

Tenilium, it occurred to him as he searched the floor for the cleaning fluids, was a rare precious metal. It was sometimes called "blue gold". The Andorians held it to be a sacred substance. Perhaps it wasn't that Goudchaux doubted his assistant's expertise. Maybe he just wanted the assistance of someone a little more... expendable.

Chekov picked up a bottle of poison and wondered if he should kill himself. It would be better than ending up in the hands of the Klingons... if that was actually a serious threat. He could trust nothing these pirates told him.

He placed the poison back on the shelf decisively. There seemed to be plenty of time for that if he became convinced it was the proper option. They weren't doing anything in particular to prevent him from trying. In the meantime, he had to watch for an opportunity to free Mister Scott.

Thinking of Mister Scott made him notice a sound he'd been ignoring since he'd arrived. It was an easy sound to ignore in a sickbay. It was the sound of a monitoring device echoing the sound of a heartbeat. Chekov compared it with his own. It was very, very slow. Either the heartbeat was not human, or the human was in some sort of state of trance, deep sedation or suspended animation.

It was easy to guess that the heartbeat being monitored belonged to Mister Scott. Whatever they were doing to him, it was obvious that it would be either controlled or monitored from sickbay. What were they doing to him, though? And which could be done from here, control or monitor? There was one easy way to find out, Chekov decided, picking up a container of an unfamiliar substance.

The medic had her back turned as he approached. She was seated at a small desk intently studying the visual display on the monitor. To her left was another small screen. On it was a readout of vital signs. Chekov was barely able to glance at it though. Much more interesting was the sight that so enthralled his captor.

The image was of four connected pieces of a blue medallion that originally had been broken into five parts. Symbols were etched into the crystal surface and outlined in shimmering silver.

Once, when he'd been teasing Sulu about the helmsman's plethora of hobbies, the lieutenant had countered by claiming that any one of his many pastimes was better than Chekov's primary form of amusement which Sulu identified as the "collection of useless knowledge". At the time, Chekov had laughed, because in the course of doing research for Mister Spock, he had come into possession of reams of information that although interesting seemed to have little practical value.

One footnote to archaeological history, however, had just become quite important to him.

The old woman turned and suddenly Chekov sensed that it was vital that she not know that he'd noticed that particular screen.

"That's Mister Scott, isn't it?" he said, pointing to the other screen which still patiently monitored someone's sluggish heartbeat.

"Go back to what you were doing," she said, but something in her eyes told him that she wasn't completely buying it. She'd tell Goudchaux that there was the possibility he'd seen it. And if Goudchaux had the slightest hint...

A bigger diversion was clearly called for.

"I didn't know what to do with this," Chekov said, holding up the bottle for a second in order to catch her eye before he threw it at her.

The bottle was made of unbreakable plastic that bounced harmlessly off the arms she raised to shield her face. It did give him enough time to dive for the desk. Covering his actions by reaching for a laser scalpel with his left hand, he hit the button that deactivated her computer monitor with his left elbow.

The old woman was no match for him. She felt like a twig in his arms as he pressed her back tightly against his chest and held the scalpel to her neck.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the computer screen had gone safely blank as he forcibly directed the old woman's attention to the lifesign monitor. "Set him free or tell me where he is, or I will cut your throat."

"Young man." The old woman's voice was raspy from lack of breath, but she wasn't even trembling. "If I do either of those I will be dead any way."

"Well, go on and kill her if you're going to," Goudchaux's filtered voice drawled over the intercom as Chekov expected it would. His grabbing of either the scalpel or the medic would have set off a dozen alarms if the monitoring device installed in his manacles was actually present and functional in the way the pirate had described.

Chekov tightened his grip on his hostage and put his finger on the scalpel's activation control. "I will kill her."

"You'd be doing him a favour," the old woman informed him bitterly. "Wouldn't he, Goudchaux? A four-way split instead of a five-way."

There was no reply for a few moments, then a long sigh. "Slit her throat or throw down your weapon, Chekov. I'm getting bored."

For a moment, he objectively weighed the advantages of killing the medic. If dead, she'd certainly not be able to entertain any suspicions that the ensign knew anything about the pirates' quest or inform Goudchaux of those suspicions. And if his hunch was correct, she was probably not going to live to see the end of this voyage anyway.

Reasoning a woman to death, however, was quite a different thing from pushing a button that would send destructive light through vital veins and arteries. Although a stranger with little concern for his welfare, this woman was still a fellow thinking/feeling creature, her frail, thin body warm and alive next to his.

Mister Chen stepped through the sickbay door as soon as the scalpel hit the floor.

"So, you opted for mayhem," Goudchaux's voice was saying. "An interesting choice."

When he released her, the old woman collected the scalpel and the bottle he'd thrown and replaced them, displaying no more concern than if the items had been displaced by the ship encountering a pocket of turbulence. When Chen took the ensign's wrists and pressed them together, the bracelets clung to each other affectionately.

"You're either being stupid," the unseen Goudchaux speculated, "or very clever."

"Very stupid," Chekov informed him helpfully.

"Since you're being so entertaining, I'll let you make another decision. Either we can wake Mister Scott, or I'll let you take the penalty for this little escapade yourself."

"I'll take it myself." Despite his earlier resolution not to spare Scott, he had the feeling that the price for his diversion was going to be somewhat high.

"Now you're back to being predictable. Hmmm..." Goudchaux's voice trailed off for a moment. "That gives me something to think about. All right, Chen, give our noble young friend the tour."

Chekov knew that whatever they were going to do to him was probably going to be unimaginably awful, so he didn't waste time trying to imagine it as Chen placed a huge hand on his back and guided him to the door. What was worth considering as he was escorted down the small ship's corridors to whatever unspeakable fate awaited him was what he'd briefly seen on the medic's computer.

Chekov had first encountered the story of the lost treasure of the Orlan Du while doing research on Orion culture for Mister Spock. It was a fascinating tale because unlike other pirate stories from Orion's semi-mythical past, there were actual relics to support it. The Orlan Du were three brothers who were fabled to have gathered a fantastic hoard of treasures and stored it away. Finding themselves pursued, the legend had it, they made a map of the location of their treasure and the access codes to disarm the traps guarding it on a piece of kirilite. The gem was split into five sections and a piece was carried away by each of the three brothers, their pilot and their navigator. Each headed, according to the legend, to a different corner of the galaxy to await the time when they could safely reunite.

The shards held by the Orlan Du were preserved and passed down as objects of veneration in three of the great houses of Orion nobility. The fourth was missing and believed destroyed until it was found on Andor by Federation archaeologists in their early explorations of that planet. Legend had always placed the fourth shard with a now extinct Orion house that had spearheaded exploration into the Andor sector. When it surfaced, there had been a brief upsurge of interest in the Orlan Du. The four pieces were useless, however, without the fifth whose whereabouts were completely unknown. Only when the entire piece was joined would the kirilite light up with the unique brand of radiation peculiar to that stone that would allow the secret characters inside the stone to become visible.

The very interesting thing about the image of the Orlan Du medallion on the medic's screen was that the only gap in the stone was caused by the absence of one of the shards owned by the Orion brothers -- a piece whose whereabouts had been known for a thousand years.

Included was an image of the never before seen fifth shard.

The possibility that this crew was on the trail of the treasure of the Orlan Du opened up a new range of possibilities for Chekov. For one thing, it was reasonable that a once great, now financially strapped house of Orion would be willing to swap a venerated but useless family heirloom for something they saw as more readily convertible to cash -- like a Starfleet officer or two. Chekov was as dubious as Goudchaux about his own going price, but a man like Mister Scott had definite market value. With the engineer's experience and technological expertise the Federation might pay as high a ransom to recover him as the Klingons would to obtain him.

Mister Goudchaux's interest in Chekov's technical abilities was also more understandable in this light. It was plausible that the pirate was beginning to consider the company of an ignorant but capable assistant on the final leg of his journey preferable to that of his less than reliable crew. Goudchaux needed his motley assemblage to get him to the treasure's location, but once there, they too became expendable.

"You're not a native speaker of Standard," Mister Chen said unexpectedly as they entered a lift.

Chekov blinked at him. The huge Asian had been so silent for so long that he had begun to think the man incapable of speech. "No, I'm not."

The lift doors opened and Chen led the way out and down another corridor. Chekov patiently waited for the usual comment about his accent. He wasn't about to supply it himself.

"It's a euphemism, you know," Chen said instead.

"What?"

They stopped in front of a door. "'Taking the tour'," Chen explained in a tone that was neither kind nor unkind. "It's a euphemism."

"For what?"

The door opened and looking inside, Chekov found that this pirate ship, like a proper pirate ship should, had a small, compact, but well-equipped dungeon.

Chen placed his hand on Chekov's back and guided him inside, saying in his neutral voice, "Torture."

***