By Jane Seaton

The guard moved aside and the door was pushed open, swinging ponderously against its automatic closures. As McCoy entered the hall, he looked around, trying to orient himself. The many occupants of the big space were Terran human, male, and mostly young to middle aged adults. Demos had been one of the very first commercial colonies, but although a founder member of the Federation, almost by default, it was not a typical UFP world, not by a long way.

McCoy caught Chekov's gaze, thirty feet away on the other side of a mesh barrier that ran the length of the chamber. As if it hurt to admit how eagerly he'd been waiting, the ensign turned away.

The doctor cursed under his breath. The barrier had desks on either side, and partitions giving the prisoners and visitors a bare privacy from one another while leaving them in full view of the staff. He wasn't going to be able to get within four feet of Chekov. This concession by the Demosian authorities was beginning to seem less and less generous.

The ensign rose to his feet as McCoy approached, only to be shouted at to sit down again. At least, that was how McCoy interpreted the order over the babble of so many voices. Chekov plainly understood it. He sat.

"Doctor."

McCoy pulled the chipped wooden chair out and sat briskly himself. "The locals aren't being overwhelmingly cooperative about this. We get the sense that some of them are highly embarrassed, but they aren't the ones with immediate influence. Starfleet's sending all the big guns…"

"But you will get me out."

"Yes. I just can't give you a timetable. There's no equivalent of bail pending appeal. It may take a little while, but we'll do it."

He watched Chekov clench his fists. "Come on, Mister Chekov. That's a promise. There's no way the Enterprise will leave orbit without you. I'm just saying don't hold your breath."

"I thought…"

"Yes?"

"Why didn't the captain come and tell me that? Why did he send you? Why couldn't he come himself..?"

"Hey, keep your voice down." McCoy shot nervous looks at the guards, turning them into dismissive scowls for the couple who were near enough to register his expression. "Listen, the law here allows you one annual visit. We persuaded them to bring it forward on the grounds that you had some vague medical problems, with the diet, or the day length, or anything else we could think of. Is there anything..?"

Chekov stared at him with a sort of offended bemusement. "Oh, no. I am quite well. Very well. But I didn't want to see you. I wanted to…" He pulled himself up. "One visit each year?"

"For anyone other than family members. That's slightly less than a Terran year, not that you're going to be here that long… Or anything like that long. I promise you." Chekov's gaze seemed to lower the surrounding temperature through a dozen degrees. "Now, how are you?"

Chekov unwound a fist and laid it palm up on the table. McCoy's eye ran up the forearm past a dressing that obviously hadn't been changed in the last twenty four hours.

"We weren't told you'd been injured. I'll complain. It's probably a bureaucratic snarl up. How bad is it?"

Chekov shrugged. "The other guy was worse."

"Christ, Chekov. Hasn't anyone explained there's remission for good behaviour… I mean, not that you're going to be here long enough for it to matter, but the more trouble you get into, the harder our case is to fight."

"There is no remission, Doctor."

"Yes, your sentence was the minimum thirty years, with potential fifty percent remission for…"

"There is no remission. I know what I'm talking about. The fifty percent doesn't work like that. It's a fifty percent penalty for each and every breach of regulations. Cumulative. Compound. My sentence now stands at forty five years. Less the thirty one hours I have spent here already."

McCoy was really wishing Chekov had got what he wanted, and Kirk was here dealing with this. "Are you sure you haven't…"

"Yes, doctor, I am very, very sure. I have had it thoroughly explained to me. I think you heard what you expected to hear, or wanted to hear, or something." The ensign shook his head, as if McCoy was somehow to blame for wanting to hear that the system offered a spark of hope.

"I'm sorry. Pavel, I'm sorry the captain didn't come. We were trying to be practical. Don't be angry with us."

"I'm too angry to care."

McCoy took a deep breath. Plainly the ensign did care, very much. Perhaps it was self defense. Perhaps in the short term, anger was less deadly than despair. He hoped it wouldn't matter which was the more poisonous beyond that.

"You can write and receive letters…"

"They censor them."

"Well, what the hell does that matter? What were you planning to…"

"They censor them coming in. They don't censor them going out, because the idea is everyone should know just how unpleasant it is inside here." Chekov's voice was wavering now between sarcasm and tears. "I thought I could write to everyone and tell how it is when they corner you in the cell blocks and…"

"Pavel…"

"Don't say it? You don't want to know?"

"No, I… No, I suppose I don't want to know. But…"

"It hasn't happened yet. Quite. A guard turned round and came back for something. One of the guards who doesn't ignore such things. But it is presumably only a matter of time… Tomorrow maybe. Or the next day. No, more likely and the next day. Well, it's something to write about. The scenery isn't very interesting."

McCoy reflected that if the authorities didn't censor outgoing mail, maybe Kirk would have to. That kind of outrage would have the Enterprise crew fit to phaser the local populace, especially the smugger varieties of politician.

"Look, there are ways of dealing with that kind of thing…"

Chekov nodded. "I know there are. I can let it happen once, let everyone think I don't give a damn and join in next time…"

"That wasn't what I…"

"Or I can find someone to protect me… at a cost."

"No. Look, there must be some other men in here with a shred of decency, or the intelligence to want to manage what's going to happen to them…"

"All there are in here are men who know they can never get out."

"Then they have an interest in making life in here tolerable, don't they? You're supposed to be an officer, not someone who gives up, or lets…"

"Did you come here just to tell me that?"

"What do you want me to tell you? What could the captain have said..?"

"He wouldn't have needed to say anything." Chekov stared McCoy down. "I would have known he cared enough to come."

McCoy paused a moment to sort out an answer. The ensign was right. Jim was the jail breaker, the action hero. The one who could deliver, not just promise. "Chekov, I already explained to you. You're getting a visit because the authorities were persuaded you needed medical advice. There was no way we could claim that Captain Kirk is a doctor. I… I understand your disappointment, but you can't put that interpretation on it."

Chekov didn't respond.

"And you are going to get out. I've told you that. Look, one thing that's been suggested, is protective isolation…"

"No!"

"Why not?"

"Because it's not solitary confinement, if that's what you think. It's what they do with the… the psychopaths, the…"

"You'd be physically safe…"

"No. To be among people who are insane, all the time… No. The only way I will be physically safe in here is by being someone everyone is afraid of, or by being protected by someone like that."

"Chekov…"

"What?"

"Think of it in terms of a month. I'm sure it won't be that long, but if a month is the worst you have to deal with…"

McCoy stopped. From Chekov's expression it was perfectly clear that while he'd been talking up the worst possible scenario, somewhere inside he'd been nursing the conviction that he'd be out later today, tomorrow if things went as badly as anyone could possibly imagine.

"What are you saying, a month?"

'You should really be better at handling this sort of thing,' McCoy told himself tiredly. 'Haven't you learned not to tell your patient he only has a few hours to live while he's still going through the brochures for the four system cruise?'

"Plan for a month. Then you can't be disappointed. Find someone who'll look out for you if you do the same for him. If you get it wrong the first time, don't give up. If anything… If the worst happens, you have to keep going regardless. You can get angry when you get out. For now you've got one job, and one job only. That's to survive without getting into any trouble you can be blamed for. Those are your orders, and Starfleet regulations about your behaviour apply just as much while you're in here as anywhere else. You're a representative of Starfleet. Wherever you happen to be." He paused to monitor how Chekov was taking the unsympathetic tirade. Quietly, it seemed; thoughtfully even. "It's simply the prime directive, Ensign. It's a situation we've been in before."

"You got five more minutes," one of the guards informed them coming to stand behind Chekov and glancing curiously at McCoy.

Chekov stood up. "We have finished."

The guard scowled. "Look, I heard you two were disagreein' about somethin', but you don't get many visits. Don't you think you should make the most of it?"

"I am ready to go now." The ensign turned his back on the mesh screen. The guard shrugged. "Quite a bunch of 'em take it like this. He'll come roun'," he told McCoy apologetically. "Be pleased to see you next time. It's too soon after he got here."

"The way you have the system set up, what other way is there for him to take it?" McCoy demanded. Then he thought better of it. "Look, I don't mean that. I'm sorry."

The guard shrugged again. "Sure you mean it. This whole place is a riot waitin' to happen. There i'n't nothin' we can offer 'em. The ones who come in soft… the ones who ain't bad through and through, I mean… they harden up until they can take care of themselves, or they learn to let someone else take care of them." He gestured at Chekov as if the ensign couldn't hear. "He's on one of the soft blocks. He'll do." Then he addressed to the prisoner. "You want your five minutes?"

"No."

"'Kay then. Walk over there to the red door and wait."

McCoy watched Chekov obey the order, joining half a dozen other young men by the door, at that distance becoming indistinguishable, another figure in bright blue uniform. "Five seven two four." McCoy repeated aloud the number that had been stencilled in orange on the back of the prison shirt. "How many prisoners do you have here? If you don't mind me asking?"

"I don' mind. 'Bout five, six hundred in this block. Ten blocks on this wing…"

"Dear God. Look, do you work with the prisoners, I mean, not just in here?"

"I'll see him aroun', if that's what you're wantin' to know…" The man was looking expectant and helpful, which somehow was less reassuring than it should have been.

"Yes, if you could do that… but I was thinking, you said some prisoners aren't bad through and through. I thought, if you want to help him keep out of trouble, which has to mean less work for you, help him to find someone he can team up with…"

"You talkin' 'bout a buddy. Sure, that's what he needs. Better to come in with one already, but… I'll see what I can do. Can't promise…"

"No. I realise that. Whatever you can do…"

"Tell you what, if you were to say he needed drugs of some sort, give him something to bargain with…"

McCoy froze his face before it could give him away. He couldn't afford to make enemies for Chekov. "Well, maybe I could do something like that. I don't know…"

***

In the queue to pass through the gates back into the cell block, Chekov found himself behind another prisoner he'd had pointed out to him by several fellow inmates with a taste for horror stories. 'The Bear' was supposed to have pulled a guard's head off during a disturbance, not in this block, or at any specified time. It was part of the mythology of the prison though. Looking up at the man, and sighting from side to side across the width of his shoulders from this close to, Chekov found it easier to believe the story than he had previously. The prisoner was humming to himself, an irritating little run of melody that Chekov suspected a smaller person would have been told to leave off with pretty quickly. The prison was full of men with irritating nervous habits, men who stood too close to you, or clenched and unclenched their fists for no reason, or argued with themselves in rapid, angry voices. Men who smelled afraid.

"Well, our two celebrities." The ensign turned a fraction but no further, registering that the back of the queue had been favoured with the arrival of a talkative redhead he'd met at breakfast. Despite the 'no talking at meal times' rule, the 'no talking just about everywhere' rule for that matter, this prisoner seemed unable to stop a flow of irritating nonsense. "The man from outer space and the nigger who eats people."

"I don' eat people."

The Bear's delivery was slow. He was staring over the top of Chekov's head, a darker flush rising into his pale brown face. He clenched his fists and lifted one of them, so that it threatened Chekov more than the redhead.

"It was a joke, Bruno. Can't you take a joke?" The redhead's voice turned wheedily

"Yeah, I c'n take a joke."

Chekov glanced round to see what had cooled the confrontation. The only guards around were busy processing men through the gate, removing the alarm tags they all wore for the trip outside their designated area.

"Next!"

The order rang out from the guards either side of the gate simultaneously and Chekov and the Bear both moved forward.

A vicious tug at Chekov's earlobe marked the removal of the tag. He reached up to his ear and brought his fingers away tipped with blood. The guard on the other side was having a harder time of it. "Come on, Sambo, I can' reach! Will you get down where I c'n unclip this damn thing!"

Chekov drew in a sharp breath. He hadn't heard what was supposed to have provoked the giant to decapitate someone, but he didn't want to be near the next time it happened. Unexpectedly, the Bear laughed and knelt down. He was still almost as tall as the guard, who calmly used the unlocking device to strip the man's ear of its temporary adornment.

"Okay, move on," Chekov's guard was telling him. The ensign obeyed reluctantly. He felt safest in places like queues, with everyone's attention focused on something up ahead - a meal, a shower - and enough guards around to ensure reasonable behaviour. In corridors and wash blocks, dining halls and exercise yards, and in the shared cells, he felt threatened. Now there was a hundred yard, twilight walk back along the tunnel to the block he'd just been assigned to. With the Bear ahead of him and the redhead about to come through the gate behind.

He started to jog. "Hey! No running!"

At that the Bear turned round and looked at him. A dull, unquestioning look. Chekov dipped his gaze to the floor. He'd thought the line, "What do you think you're staring at?" was a bad joke from ancient prison melodramas. He hadn't appreciated until now how the tension of close confinement could make an unwelcome look an insult, and an insult a reason to kill.

"You're go'to get out of here, aren't you?"

He couldn't help looking up. "I hope so…"

"No. Everyone sayin' you go'to get out."

"Well, I don't see how they can know that."

"Uh-huh."

The ensign glanced back. The redhead had been delayed by something.

"What do they call you?"

"What? Chekov. Pavel Chekov." After a moment he remembered his manners. "You?"

"You know wha' they call me."

The giant continued to pace heavily down the tunnel. Chekov, keeping a wary double arms length between them, walked beside him. As they drew close to the far gate, the Bear spoke again. "I wan' talk to you, Chekov. I'll find you."

"What about..?"

"Move!" The grill slid open to let them out of the tunnel, and the conversation was over.

***

"Collect your belongings from your cell, twenty four. You been reassigned."

Belongings was a joke. Everything Chekov owned had been taken from him on arrival, to be replaced by coveralls, canvas shoes with thin plastic soles, a new toothbrush and a less than new wash rag in a transparent waterproof bag.

"You in nine fifty seven." The guard who'd checked him into the block the previous day gestured at a passing prisoner. "Show him where to put his stuff. Then take him straight out to the yard."

"Nine fifty seven, nine fifty seven, nine fifty seven," the escort chanted through his nose, as if he were in danger of forgetting their destination. Chekov tried to ignore him and simultaneously to study the numbers on the doors they were passing to see if there was a pattern that would enable him to predict where his new home would be. One or two cell doors were open. Inside, the walls were lined with triple tiers of bunks. It looked like he'd be sharing with eight other men now, rather than the two new arrivals whose muttering had kept him awake the previous night. . Eight criminals, possibly murderers, drug dealers, arsonists, rapists…

"In there."

Chekov came round from his reverie. The door the man was pointing to had no number and no surveillance grille. It was a cupboard.

"I think you've made a mistake…"

"I think you about to make a mistake. Someone wants to see you, in there. Get in."

A dinner knife slipped down the prisoner's sleeve and into his palm. Its blade was sharpened to a gleaming sliver. Chekov hesitated, little as he wanted to defy the owner of that weapon.

"Open the door and get in."

The prisoner danced forward half a step, thrusting with the knife. Intellectually, Chekov knew he could probably disarm him but his body wouldn't translate that conviction into action. He stumbled against the door, almost overbalancing when it opened unresistingly. An arm pulled him inside and drew him into the darkness.

"Good. Now we c'n talk."

He recognised the voice instantly. It was the Bear, and it seemed as though his words reverberated along the whole length of his body, giving them a rich depth.

"What do you want to talk about?" Chekov didn't mind talking, if that was all the man really wanted, provided it didn't take so long that he got into trouble for being late at his next destination.

"Si'down."

"Okay. I'll sit down." Straining his eyes in the darkness, Chekov made out what he thought was a pile of boxes and tried his weight on them. They bore it.

"You got a girlfrien'?"

For a moment, the ensign was surprised, then he guessed where this conversation was going. He'd heard a few like it already. He'd been brought here so that he could describe some woman of his acquaintance as aural pornography for another prisoner's use.

"No."

"Not at all? Not ever?" The Bear's reaction was childish astonishment. "Everyone else in here got a girlfrien' outside. I got a girlfrien' outside. Someone to think about…"

"Well, I do not."

"Didn' you have a girlfrien' ever?"

Chekov hesitated. One of the curiosities of Demosian society was its strong homophobia. It had been footnote in a sociology text until now, but the ensign suddenly realised he'd better be careful what he said on this subject. "What does it matter to you?"

"It don' matter. But… You go'to get out of here, right?"

"I have told you already. I don't know."

"Well, when you do, I'd like for you to take her somethin', my girlfrien', I mean."

"Well, yes, I could do that. If I do ever get out. I can't promise…" McCoy had promised, but he didn't trust that promise enough to share it. "Can't you send it to her, write to her…"

"I can' write…"

"I could write for you…"

"She can' read."

"Oh."

"She's nice. She's not pretty, but she's nice. Nice to hold. Nice to kiss, you know? You never had a girlfrien'?"

"I would just prefer not to talk about it."

"Ah," the Bear sighed confidentially. "You better tell everyone you got a girlfrien', then. Li'l guy like you, someone'll kill you jus' for fun, they think you like that. You understand?"

Chekov swallowed. He understood perfectly now. "I just don't believe my girlfriend is anyone else's business. But I am sure yours is nice, and I would be happy to take something to her, if I do get out."

He could almost hear the Bear purr at getting what he apparently wanted.

After a moment the silence in the cupboard took on an expectant quality.

"Is that all? Can I go now? I think I'm meant to be somewhere…"

"What you wan' from me then?"

A surprised 'nothing' almost tumbled over Chekov's lips before he could catch it. This prisoner was feared, had faced down the redhead without doing more than looking willing to fight, could send a knife-wielding underling to fetch Chekov for him. He might or might not be as stupid as he seemed, but Chekov decided on the spur of the moment that he could do worse than ask the Bear to look out for him.

"I need someone I can trust, a friend…"

"A buddy. Yeah. I'll be your buddy."

"Good. Thank you… I don't know your name, your real name…"

"My buddies call me Bruno. Everyone call me Bruno." The Bear stood and pulled the door open. Outside the prisoner was still waiting. Bruno grabbed the man by the throat and pushed him up against the wall, so that his toes barely touched the ground. "Chekov's my buddy now, understand? You don' touch him. No one touch him. If anyone touch him, you tell me, I kill them. Understan'?"

The man made a throaty gulping sound and nodded his head as far as he could before he choked on the Bear's knuckles.

"Good." Dropping him back onto his feet, Bruno rubbed his hands together. "Now, let's go put your roll in my cell."

***

Nine fifty seven was just a few doors away, the Bear's cell a little further beyond. A weasel faced man, half-heartedly smearing the sanitary fittings with a grey cloth, was ordered to clear his bedding off the bunk below the giant and sent scurrying off to Chekov's billet.

"But won't the guards…"

"You and me are buddies. Buddies need to watch for each other at night too."

Chekov felt as if he'd ventured out onto quicksand. But perhaps he had to accept Bruno with all his drawbacks. By definition, anyone he tried to team up with in here was going to have some flaw.

"Well, okay. I should be in the exercise yard now, according to the guard…"

"'Kay." The Bear followed him like a devoted dog along the corridors to the exercise yard, booming instructions at every turning. "Right here… Left here. Here we are."

"You're late!" a thin-featured guard yelled, registering their emergence into the grey daylight that filtered through a mesh screen overhead. "Keep moving, keep the pace even, don't bunch up, get those clothes off and get in the line there. No talking…" He barked out a stream of orders that applied first to the miserable double circle of prisoners marching in counter revolutions to each other, then to the newcomers, then to everyone again without adjustment in volume.

It was winter cold in the yard, but the men who circled endlessly were wearing only shorts and singlets in various shades of faded grey. Their blue overalls were rolled and lined up along one of the walls. Bruno drew Chekov to the far end of the row of bundles and stripped off himself, while the ensign followed suit, shivering in anticipation. He hoped the pace of the forced march was going to pick up a little. As slow as it was at present, it was practically torture.

He slipped his shoes back on and joined the outer circle behind Bruno when a large enough gap presented itself.

At first he was aware only of the miserable cold but very soon he realised that despite the precaution of having the two sets of men march in opposite directions, there were conversations going on. Some prisoners were muttering a phrase at a time as whoever they wanted to speak to came round, but a few, including the man immediately behind Chekov, seemed to be enjoying four or five different discussions, juggling the conversations effortlessly. With all the panache of a circus performer, the man enrolled the newcomer in the act. "You must be the guy from Earth, right?"

"Yes," Chekov admitted, already tuned in enough not to turn and look. He ignored the next two remarks the man made, as not addressed to him.

"What cell are you in? Nine fifty seven?"

The ensign didn't answer, out of caution and a sudden reluctance to admit to his status as the Bear's protégé.

"Didn't you hear me? I said what cell are you in?"

"Why do you want to know?" He was still looking straight ahead, but he realised suddenly that that was a mistake as his eyes met those of the thin faced guard.

"Out here, twenty four."

He dropped out of the file and walked smartly over to three men in black uniforms who between them were supervising the yard. They looked at each other and then at him.

"Are you allowed to talk in the yard, twenty four?" one of them asked him.

"No, sir."

"Were you talking, twenty four?" another demanded.

"Yes, sir." Chekov did his best to block out the cold, the way his limbs were trembling, the fact that they were in sharply creased uniforms and he was in third hand underwear. 'I don't deserve to be here. I don't have to be frightened of these people…'

"Put him in the butt." It was the thin faced guard's turn now. His colleagues grabbed Chekov by an arm each and marched him over to a metal tank four feet high and maybe five feet on a side. It was brimming full of dark water.

Chekov surfaced spluttering. The wheel within a wheel of prisoners was still moving. No one was actually turning their heads to watch him, but as they faced him, their expressions were as cold as the water.

"Back in the line, twenty four."

By now, Chekov was so cold he could hardly catch his breath.

"What cell are you in?" the voice behind him repeated once they were facing away from all the guards.

"Fuck off," Chekov risked saying and after that he was silent.

He was still shaking when they were told to stop. They stood motionless as prisoners were sent to dress, in what he guessed was the order in which they'd first arrived, making him the last to get to his clothes.

The thin-faced guard came over as he struggled with numb fingers to pull his uniform on over wet skin and underwear. "'Forty seven, 'twelve, keep him walking the yard 'til he stops shaking. Not you! Back in the line."

The Bear waited, expressionless, until Chekov shook his head fractionally then retreated awkwardly to join the other prisoners who waited in line to file back inside.

Chekov didn't wait for instructions. He returned to the circular path, so worn by the grind of exercise that the asphalt had a greasy polish to it, and started to pace around it, fast. As the prisoners vanished through the narrow doorway, the last guard followed them and the door swung shut. Forty seven and twelve wore red trustee armbands, a hot note in Chekov's frozen universe. Even moving with all the energy he could muster, he felt as if he'd been turned to ice.

"Here."

He stopped dead. One prisoner, his face a grey blur, was standing only a few inches in front of the ensign, holding something out.

"Here," the man repeated. Chekov forced his eyes to focus and realised he recognised him from the crowd in the wash block that morning.

"It's candy."

It was. Chocolate.

"What…d…d…d…do you w…want?"

"Keep walking."

Chekov stumbled as he obeyed but the man caught his arm and set him back on his feet. "Come on. You'll be okay in a moment. Here." This time the chocolate was broken into a couple of tiny pieces and pushed into his hand. His fingers fumbled it, but the man retrieved it before it fell and held it out as if he was feeding a horse. "Come on. Eat it."

"No." It could only have been the cold making him so stubborn. He wanted that sugar-rich morsel with an intensity that frightened him. But he feared what the guy was going to ask for in return.

"Okay. Then I'll eat it."

The chocolate vanished. The prisoner's mouth was sharply in focus as he masticated, smiling. Chekov turned away and started walking again.

"I've got more. It's not drugged, not poisoned. It's trustee candy. The gov'nor's little sweetener. What's your problem?"

"I don't know what you want." The shivers had subsided to the point where he could force himself to speak without stuttering.

"You're paranoid, you know. Running scared. What d'you think I want?"

"I don't know."

"This morning, what did you think we were going to do?"

There was another square of chocolate in the man's hand, and this time Chekov's fingers managed to fasten on it and carry it to his mouth. The burst of sweetness felt as good as any drug the ensign could imagine.

"Gang rape? No way. We don't have perverts like that on this block. They wouldn't last a minute. Anyway, you're Starfleet trained, aren't you? If you weren't so damn cold, you could take both of us, with your bare hands. Couldn't you?"

"What do you want?" The man might be right, but Chekov's muscles still felt like cotton wool.

"I want to get to know you, find out how useful you might be. That's all."

"I'm not going to do anything useful…"

"Not anything? All crimes the same in here. Talking, spitting, fighting, killing. It all makes no difference. You're here. And you'll stay here."

"There's still such a thing as right and wrong."

"No, no, no." The trustee shook his head exaggeratedly. "You make your own right and wrong. Doesn't Starfleet believe that? Every culture is entitled to say what's right and what's wrong?"

Chekov was too cold and dispirited to argue. It was why he was here, after all.

***

"Bring him in."

Chekov heard the order through the half open door. The summons to see the Governor, out of the blue, had him walking a tight rope between hope that this was his reprieve and the halfhearted expectation that Kirk would have found a way to make an unofficial visit.

He entered the room in the best parade ground manner, straightened up in front of the large, paper strewn desk and looked the man behind it straight in the eye.

The Governor shifted his pale grey eyes forty five degrees right and coughed unhappily.

"Ah, Chekov."

"Sir."

"Get me some coffee, Maddy. And… uh, perhaps Chekov here would… No, perhaps not. I've been interested to see how you'd settle in, Chekov. Very interested."

The ensign tried to keep his face expressionless. The Governor wasn't quite what he'd expected.

"You see…" The man rose out of his chair and began to pace up and down in the narrow corridor between his desk and the bookcases that lined the wall, stopping now and then to push a volume more precisely into place. "You see, certain people promoting a theory, if inmates had some experience of military discipline, sort of convict boot camp if you like, there'd be fewer disturbances in here. Fact that you managed to get involved in a violent confrontation within hours of arriving make that less compelling um… a less compelling ah… Maddy?"

"Hypothesis, sir?"

"Hypothesis, quite. Were you trying to make trouble?"

"No, sir."

"Ah."

"But…"

"Go on. Without prejudice, off the record. One man to another… Spit it out."

"I didn't realise that what I was doing would make trouble."

"Period of adjustment required, hm? Not so much boot camp, more an induction course into prison mores and manners. Can't see that winning votes at the Capitol. No."

"No, sir."

"Well." The Governor snatched a piece of paper off his desk. "Request here, for you to be transferred to Protective Isolation…"

"What?"

Chekov couldn't believe it. He thought at least he'd managed to get across to McCoy that being incarcerated in a population of hopeless inadequates, seasoned with the criminally insane, just so that he could be assaulted by psychopaths rather than criminals, was not what he wanted. "No…"

"Not what I'd choose. Worst accommodation — inmates wreck it, worst guards —good ones won't stay. Cameras making you feel like rat in a trap and dribbling incontinent multiple homicide in the next bed. Not a thing I can do about it, you see. Hopelessly overcrowded. Anyway, can't ignore this request. Anything happens to you, axe falls. Although…" The man stopped suddenly and stared out of the window, where the outer perimeter of the prison complex was discernible through the grim drizzle of rain. "Early retirement sometimes attractive option."

Chekov stood, caught between fury at McCoy and force of habit that told him what Starfleet decided, Pavel Chekov accepted. The desperate need to avoid what was about to happen to him won out over his conditioning.

"Couldn't you…"

"Hm?"

"If the Protective Isolation Unit is overcrowded, couldn't you just say that you will move me there as soon as a place becomes available, but that there are more urgent cases?"

"Could do, could do. Yes…" The Governor suddenly seemed to fire up with enthusiasm for this idea. "Yes, yes. Certainly. Good notion, only…"

"Yes, sir?"

"Matter of judgement, urgency of case. If you were to, say, just for argument's sake, get into another… incident, shall we say, might look like matter of misjudgement. You see?"

Chekov swallowed. "I would not make any complaint about anything that happens to me if you let me stay on the block where I am."

The Governor narrowed his eyes. "If someone kills you, not much comfort if you don't complain. Wouldn't anyway, would you?" He shrugged dismissively, an action that seemed to involve his entire upper body. "Riots, arguments… Can't give any guarantees. In a safe block, as blocks go… For now."

Chekov took a deep breath and said, with all the sincerity he could muster. "Sir, I would very much prefer to stay where I am now. I'll do whatever's necessary to make it possible for you to arrange that. Please."

The Governor abruptly dashed round the table and thumped him cheerfully on the back. "Letting the inmates take some responsibility for themselves. Yes. Good thought. Like it. Draw up a proposal. Good man." He turned away to the door, "Maddy!" and back to Chekov. "Right. That's that. Dismissed."

"Yes, sir."

"Wait. Letter. Thought you should see it. Trifle close to the wind… Give him his letter, Maddy."

Chekov followed the secretary into the outer office, where the guard who had escorted him here from the block still waited by the door. He was handed an opened envelope by the middle aged woman and she stood watching him as he looked at it. When he glanced up at her, she smiled. "It's the sort of letter that gets censored down to Dear whoever and Yours sincerely. I think he wanted you to be able to read it all."

Chekov pulled out a sheet of paper and unfolded it. Someone had crossed out the 'Ensign Chekov' and written in 'Pavel' by hand.

The letter started formally, setting out the various procedures that Starfleet was going through to secure his release, and continued:

'I have to say that on the basis of local legal advice, it seems there is no certainty that any of these avenues will be successful. We are also pursuing diplomatic routes. The Demosian government currently insists that no exceptions can be made to general law enforcement policy, however regrettable the consequences. It appears that the existence of such injustices is acknowledged and considered to be an acceptable cost in the 'war against crime'. In the words of the Minister for Justice, 'when a country is at war, young men die. We know that the innocent are sometimes wrongly incarcerated. They must consider that they are giving up their freedom for the sake of others. Crime is the most serious threat this society faces at this time.' I'm sure you will find that as uninspiring as I do.

If diplomacy fails, the Federation will consider economic and other sanctions, but such a policy would not be consistent with our overall objective of self-determination for member worlds. I anticipate that there will be an unofficial go slow on trade and other forms of cooperative endeavour by individual worlds and organisations. I will certainly do everything in my power to support such a response, if other measures are not successful. Obviously my position in Starfleet limits my options, but I'm sure that there will be others who will do everything possible on your behalf.

Your actions during the hostage crisis were in the best tradition of Starfleet. Your failure to follow the exact orders of the local authorities was, in my opinion, within your discretion as an officer at the centre of events and correctly prioritised the saving of lives before other considerations. I have recommended that your courage and resourcefulness be recognised, and can only hope that Command won't bow to political expediency and prefer to ignore my nomination.

Doctor McCoy says you hoped I would visit you. I thought that his skills might be more use. I apologise for my misjudgement.

Your duty now is to continue to uphold the ideals of Starfleet in a more difficult situation than you probably ever anticipated. You are always in our thoughts.'

When the secretary put out her hand Chekov returned the letter to her. Kirk had not, as McCoy had, held out any promise. Presumably whatever hope the doctor had relied on this morning had been shattered by later events.

"I'm not going to get out of here, am I?"

"You poor boy. Sit down."

She guided him into a chair and took both his hands. "This law is the ugliest piece of political thuggery I've ever seen on this planet. The Governor… You may not have much sympathy for him, but he knows it isn't going to work. The crime rate's gone down, I know, but the type of crime committed is a thousand times worse. People caught stealing might as well murder. And as for what's going to happen in here… I've heard rumours the government response will be to introduce the death penalty."

"Why are you telling me this?"

She took a deep breath. "Because you could so easily turn to the bad. For your own sake, don't."

"But what point is there…"

"If they bring in the death penalty for new convicts, it will be only a small step to using it to cull the numbers on the inside. On the other hand, if there is a riot, as there will be eventually… What is there to stop it when no one has anything to gain by good behaviour? If the prison complex is wrecked, there will be survivors. There won't be anywhere to put them. That's when they'll have to consider parole. You have to be one of the suitable candidates, and you have to retain enough of yourself that it's you who gets out, not just someone who looks like you but is twisted out of recognition."

Chekov guessed he wasn't the first person she'd said this to. "You think there will be a riot?"

"It might not happen for a year, or five, but eventually, yes."

From later today, to a month, to hoping for a catastrophe that he was as likely to perish in as escape by: Chekov had never realised that hope could mock you so cruelly. It was as if fate was playing with him before reeling him in, hooked and exhausted. "How can you work here?"

"It did some good. Just three weeks ago, I was able to write references for men who were leaving here and finding employment, settling down with their families again. Making a new start. I know why you're here and I'm ashamed of it. Don't make it worse by… Don't let them destroy you."

She was doing his crying for him.

He got out of the chair, embarrassed by her tears. "I'd better go."

"Yes. You had." She smiled with difficulty. "My son's not much younger than you. If he wound up in here, I'd shoot the damn President myself."

***

The next stop was the prison infirmary. Chekov had visited late in the evening after yesterday's 'incident', the one that had earned him an extra fifteen years behind bars. Now, it was operating at full stretch. After Chekov had queued for nearly two hours, in silence, an orderly with dirty nails took the bandage off his arm, pulled at the half healed graze with his thumbs and waved the patient away. "Go to room A."

Another queue. Chekov was reminded of pictures of Muscovites obtaining food before the demise of communism. At the head of the line, a man with a pinched face, far too young to be a doctor, was talking briefly to each prisoner before moving on to the next.

"Okay, this is your medical. If you have any medical problems at any time you can request an appointment with a doctor. Do you have any pre-existing medical conditions for which you've been receiving treatment. Do you have any physical disabilities. Have you been diagnosed as suffering from mental illness. Are you currently suffering from any sexually transmitted diseases. Are you a drug user. Are you homosexual. Have you been inoculated against all of these illnesses…" The man waved a printed list in front of Chekov's eyes. He pushed at an untidy heap of pale grey paper on the desk in front of him. "I can't see your notes… ah, here. No. No problems. Okay. You can go. Next."

Chekov had finally got back to the mainstream of prison life and into the queue for another tasteless, but mercifully hot meal. There was no sign of the Bear. As he came away from the hatch with a tray he was stopped by a guard who directed him out of the steady flow of men filling up tables one by one. The clangour of metal cutlery on metal plates on metal tables was nearly deafening and Chekov wasn't at all sure what he was being told to do.

"I'm sorry, I didn't…"

The guard just pointed. There was an open door at the end of the mess hall, through which another room was visible. Chekov shrugged and turned his steps in that direction.

The next room was smaller than the main hall, but equally over full of trestle tables. He looked round for an official or guard on duty who might want to talk to him. There were guards, but they were eating, at a table set on its own in one corner. Their plates were more generously filled than Chekov's. One looked up and waved him over, smiling round a mouthful of… of what Chekov realised close to wasn't quite the same food that he had on his plate. The guards appeared to be enjoying steak and fresh vegetables, rather than the greasy, pale grey pastry containing potato in gravy that had been ladled out of the metal trays as Chekov passed.

"You seen the doctor?"

It was the guard from the visiting hall.

"Yes, sir."

"'Yes, sir!' I don' of'en get spoken to like that. You in a better mood now?"

"Yes, sir."

"I told your frien' to make sure you had somethin'… somethin' for me." The guard frowned at Chekov's confusion. "You do know what I'm talkin' about, don' you?"

The ensign shook his head. "No, I don't."

"Your frien' tells the doctor here you need something, you get it from th'nfirmary every day, you hide it and give it to me. Simple. Right?"

"What sort of something?"

The guard leaned very close and said right into Chekov's face. "Drugs. Perskiption drugs. P'ticu'ly drugs that have t'be imported from offworld. Tell your frien' that. He'll know somethin'. Then you just make sure you remember what it's called when you get given it, tell me and there we are."

Chekov paled. There was no way McCoy was going to do that. "How can I tell him?"

"Write him. You allowed to write. No one looks at letters out much."

"But he won't…"

"He will." The guard seemed utterly certain of that. "You just tell him what'll happen t'you if he don'. You'll see."

"And what will happen? If he refuses, I mean?"

The guard shrugged. "Your wors' nightmares, pris'ner. Your wors' nightmares." He studied Chekov as if those nightmares were already being played out in the ensign's eyes but all Chekov could see for the moment was a mocking memory of McCoy's doggedly positive expression from the visiting hall.

"He can't do that. He should have told you he wouldn't."

"He didn' tell me nothin' of the sort. Said he'd think about it. Said if he knew what I wanted…"

"He's probably reported you for even suggesting it."

The guard pulled back. "He'd better not have, twenty four. 'Cause I'll still be here if he does, and I'll have a grudge to work off then, won' I?"

"But I don't have any influence over what Doctor McCoy does. I just don't believe he'll do what you ask. Even if I write to him…"

"You better believe he will. Here, sit down."

His plate was taken away and replaced by a somewhat crumpled sheet of lined paper and a blunt pencil.

"I can't write and ask him to… I just can't." Even the thought of anyone on the Enterprise reading such a letter made him feel physically sick.

The guard looked unexpectedly sympathetic. "All righ', kid. Don' go gettin' upset. We'll do somethin' else instead."

"You will?"

"Sure. I don' like upsettin' people. It's just my pay's the pits, eh?" The other guards around the table looked up and nodded. Chekov felt strongly that he was being set up for something.

"You just sit there for now, and when I've done eating, I'll beat your ass black'n'blue. Okay?"

"He won't do it," Chekov repeated doggedly, past believing that it made any difference, but since McCoy wouldn't cooperate, he might as well take the consequences now, rather than later when the doctor failed to deliver. What the hell could McCoy have said to make this man think for a moment that a Starfleet doctor would peddle drugs?

"You better hope he will." The guard slid his knife and fork together on his empty plate. "Com'on then."

A couple of the other guards laughed and got to their feet at the same time.

"Call me when you've finished," one of those still eating said without looking up. The man had a distinct Earth accent, not the usual Demosian drawl. A friend, Chekov thought irrationally. A saviour. He stopped pulling against the grip the three guards had taken on his arms.

"Why?" the drug-dealer asked pleasantly. "Too squeamish to watch?"

"No." The newcomer finished his mouthful of food and stuck his fork into another tender morsel. "You knock the fight out of him, it saves me the trouble. I prefer them… docile."

The rest of the guards seemed almost as taken aback by this as Chekov was.

"Sure, why not?" the drug dealer conceded eventually. "That okay with you?" he checked with the ensign mock considerately.

"I'll write the letter."

"No, you're right. Your doctor frien' won' play. Forget the letter."

"I'll write the letter for you. You'll get the drugs. I was lying." McCoy's failure to respond was something he could deal with later. And that was the last time he'd play for sympathy, or even try to tell the truth.

The guard returned the paper and pencil. He leaned over Chekov's shoulder, muttering the words under his breath as they formed. Nerves sent the ensign's handwriting looping into redundant curlicues but hell, he didn't want it to look like he'd sat down and written this in cold blood, did he?

"Good. Sensible." The letter disappeared into a jacket pocket. Chekov's meal was returned and he was waved over to an empty table to eat it. It had been barely warm when he'd first collected it, but now the gravy lay in a congealed slick over the surface. Everyone would be waiting to hear from him, and when a letter arrived, it would be a filthy, illiterate demand for drugs. Chekov pushed his food away, put his head down on his arms and tried to force the image of McCoy reading it out of his mind.

***

Filing out of the mess hall fifteen minutes later, Chekov felt a little numb still.

A second shift was queuing to enter the mess hall. For the rest of them, there was now a period of free association. Chekov looked around the landings to locate guards, then cursed himself. Why bother? The Bear, though: where was he?

The man who'd offered him the chocolate suddenly caught his eye and beckoned. "Over here. Leader wants to talk to you."

Chekov's instinctive reaction was to tell the trustee to mind his own business, but his experience with the drug peddling guard had daunted him. He shrugged and obeyed.

Leader turned out to be a middle aged man with a full beard and dry flaking skin, sitting at the foot of a flight of metal stairs. Apparently disinterested men were positioned around him, ignoring one another, like novice security guards on a plain clothes assignment. Several of them wore the trustee bands, but not Leader. Chekov sought again for a glimpse of his own minder amongst the prisoners, with no success. Maybe Bruno had somehow been allocated to the second shift.

Leader gestured to the empty step beside him. Chekov took it warily.

"Your name's Chekov, right?"

"Yes. And yours is…"

"Leader. Charles Leader." The man smiled charmingly. "But you can call me 'sir'."

"I don't see why I should."

Leader laughed now. "Then I'll have to explain it to you. In a moment. I want to know something first. Tell me how you come to be in here, Chekov. In detail."

"Why do you want to know?"

"Just answer the fucking question!" Leader smashed his fist against the banister, setting off a metallic clangour that rang for long seconds. Everything else fell deathly silent in response.

"Okay!" Chekov attributed his suddenly racing pulse to the display of aggression. He clenched his fists in his lap and took a deep breath. "The Enterprise brought a Federation delegation to Demos in response to a request from your government…"

"My government," Leader growled. "That's a good one."

"…For assistance with social problems, particularly an escalation of violent crime, drug abuse and economic inequality. Due to threats from opposition parties, to disrupt transporter function with random subspace signals, we were using a shuttle to bring the delegation to the Capitol for an initial meeting." Chekov paused for some signal that he was doing this correctly.

"Right. Go on."

"During the meeting, a group of armed individuals broke into the room and took seven people hostage. The seven included four citizens of Demos and three representatives of the Federation. The demands of the… the… " The careful evenhandedness of Chekov's original report to Captain Kirk evaporated under pressure. "The criminals demanded transport off the planet, a large quantity of precious commodities and guaranteed immunity for their families. The local security forces surrounded the area and refused to negotiate. One of the Federation representatives, a Doctor Chanel, was killed and her body thrown off the roof onto the ground below."

The ensign realised that he was shaking at least as much from the memory of her body smashing into the asphalt less than ten metres from the shuttle as from the threat Leader posed to him now.

"Go on," Leader repeated coldly.

"The government reiterated that it would not negotiate, in line with its recently declared Hard Line policy on crime. I was able to listen to public broadcast announcements…" Chekov explained, not wanting to give the impression that he'd had any part in the way the Demos authorities had handled the episode.

"Okay. Go on."

"I also was aware that the Federation had given Captain Kirk permission to use his discretion in offering passage away from Demos for the criminals and any hostages, if it would help to save lives, but the government had declined his offer of help. They said that giving in would only encourage others to take hostages."

"So?"

The men around them were silent. Chekov scraped his nails nervously against the tops of his thighs. "The authorities then imposed a communications blackout around the Capitol, jamming any broadcasts…"

"So you were out of contact with your superiors?"

"Yes. I approached the most senior security officer I could find, to say that the shuttle was available if they decided to allow the criminals to leave, or if they needed a medical evacuation. I also pointed out that the shuttle carried stun weapons that could be used on a blanket setting."

"And why wouldn't that have been a good idea?"

"They said that before surveillance equipment had been disabled, the criminals had placed explosives connected to… to…"

"Dead men's handles?" Leader smiled at one of his men, as if they'd worked all this out and Chekov was only confirming it. "They'd wired the hostages, right."

"I returned to the shuttle. I was still monitoring communications, hoping to receive instructions from my ship. I picked up a message from the authorities to the security officers at the scene. The terrorists had threatened to kill another hostage, a Demosian this time, in one hour if their demands were not met. In response, the security forces were instructed to use annihilating force against the criminals. They were to make no efforts to take prisoners or preserve the hostages."

"And what did you do?"

"I knew, from messages I'd heard and from the initial security review on board the Enterprise, that the hostages were being held in the original meeting room, and I remembered the exact location of that room on the upper floor of the Capitol building. The communications equipment and computer on the shuttle enabled me to break into the criminals' scrambled transmissions. I warned them what I was doing, then smashed the shuttle through the roof of the building and offered to take everyone to the Enterprise, on condition that the criminals abandoned their weapons and explosives. They agreed."

"What about transporters," Leader interrupted. "I know there are jamming grids built into all government offices and such like to prevent illegal use of transporters, but surely the Enterprise is sophisticated enough to get round that?"

Chekov recalled Scott cursing over the Demosian habit of weaving bits of high energy circuitry into their structures. He'd described it as worse than a man made ion storm, and gone off with a bad grace to ready the Enterprise's little fleet of shuttles for their visit. "No. I don't think we can. Transporters are very vulnerable to random noise, whether it's generated deliberately or naturally.

Leader nodded, and Chekov suddenly realised that the architects of this prison had probably followed the same basic security practices. No wonder Leader was interested in what the Enterprise could and couldn't do. There would have been the temptation to take Chekov, and perhaps a dozen guards, hostage and try to make an escape by bargaining directly with Kirk. "And when you arrived on board, your Captain very correctly handed the criminals, and you, over to the authorities."

"Yes." 'It's just a matter of form,' Kirk had told him. 'They've got their people out alive, we've got ours. The terrorists are in custody. They just have to settle whether they release you under diplomatic immunity and save face, or admit their policy is way off beam and name a planetary holiday after you.'

He hadn't even been allowed back to his cabin. Half an hour later, he'd watched a guard seal his uniform into a bag and list his personal effects. For more than forty eight hours now, a small voice inside him had been repeating endlessly 'I don't believe it. I don't believe it…'

"Have you ever broken the law before?"

"What?"

"Apart from soft drugs, petty theft, traffic violations…"

"No. I mean, I've never done any of those, or anything else."

"Without blemish. D'you think if we nail him to something and let him die, the Governor will open the gates and let us go?" The allusion was obviously too obscure for Leader's audience. They looked blank. "I suppose you think I should feel sorry for you? I don't. But… There must be a hell of a lot of people out there who feel embarrassed about you, don't you think?"

"I… I don't know."

"They don't need to feel embarrassed about me, or about him, or him. They're happy to forget about us, or enjoy their self-righteous freedom while we rot. But you… I've a feeling you aren't going to go away. Maybe if something really dreadful happened to you in here…" Leader speculated.

Chekov gripped the edge of the tread he was seated on.

"No. I suppose they could keep it quiet…"

They wouldn't even need to do that, the ensign reflected bitterly, recalling his ill-advised deal with the Governor. Protective Isolation was beginning to look like a better and better option.

"You don't like that idea?" Leader probed.

"I don't think so. No."

"Well, maybe it wouldn't be an efficient way to utilise you. Let me tell you why you're going to stay on my right side. You probably haven't worked this out yet, but you're a fortunate man. I control this block and nothing happens here that I don't approve of. Now, I understand you've made your own arrangements with our friend the Bear. I don't mind that, but both of you have to understand that it's not allowed to interfere with my arrangements."

"If you leave me alone, it doesn't have to."

"But it already has, Chekov. It already has."

"I don't see…"

"I don't care whether you see or not. If I say it, it's so. Twenty minutes ago, one of my men was found at the foot of the stairs on the main hall, the one who spoke to you in the exercise yard, who asked you which cell you were in."

"I…"

"Don't see what that has to do with you? Just a coincidence?"

"Well…" Chekov was hit by something near to panic. His arrangement with Bruno had been dangerously open-ended. What if the Bear had killed someone?

"Maybe the Bear flipped him over, maybe he slipped. Maybe the Governor is signing my release papers this very minute." Leader smiled again, then drew his face into a scowl that scored deep lines around his mouth. "I don't think so, Chekov. Now, he was just asking you a polite question, wasn't he?"

"But…"

"Not his responsibility if you're too stupid to know when to keep your mouth shut, is it?"

Chekov declined to answer.

"Well you listen to me. This is my wing. I keep it in order. I select who comes here. Your pet nigger…"

"Don't call him that!"

Leader looked at Chekov, astonished. "Don't call him what?"

"Bruno. Don't call him a 'nigger'." Chekov almost bit his tongue. This wasn't Earth. It was a prison full of lifers on a planet of the damned. Verbal racial abuse was probably the least of anyone's problems. He glanced round and noted that every one of Leader's minders was fair skinned.

Leader was still talking. "Why the hell not? He is one. But he's also unimportant. You're going to be useful. If the two of you lead each other astray and make trouble, well… The Governor sends in more guards. He stops thinking this is the wing where he puts the good boys. We get unpleasant characters moving in. The guards are not the friendly types we enjoy such good relations with at the moment. They start searching us, waking us up in the middle of the night, finding excuses to beat us up, losing keys, withdrawing the little comforts that mean so much to us. Do you see?"

Chekov bit his lip. "I do not intend to make any trouble for anyone."

"You little fool." Leader was regarding him with contempt. The man sighed. "Still, you have your uses. I feel safer for having you here. And that's why I'm going to let you off lightly for what happened to Drake. This time. In future, you watch yourself… and your dancing bear." The man's yellowed eyes smiled unpleasantly. "And don't make the mistake of thinking he can protect you from me."

Leader nodded almost imperceptibly and two of his men stepped forward. Chekov felt two more behind him grab his arms. They marched him to one of the open cell doors. Chekov almost managed to pull out of their grasp as they manoeuvred him through, but four to one made resistance merely stupid. He was dragged into the middle of the cell and released.

"You're not using that brain of yours." The accusation was followed up by a punch that slammed Chekov into a bunk. He slid to his knees and braced himself for the next blow, but it didn't come.

"Think, stupid." His attacker was a middle aged man, rather thick set and fleshy. "What's this jail full of?"

"Prisoners?"

"Correct. And when are they going to get out?"

"When this planet elects a government with some sense?"

"Clever, but wrong. At least, it's wrong as far as ninety percent of the men in here are concerned, because they just don't think like that. Never. What is the answer?"

Chekov chewed his lip for a moment. "Never."

"Right. So what have they got to lose?"

"Nothing?"

"Correct again. Now, if I were to feel like, say, killing you, what is there to stop me?"

"Nothing?"

"Wrong that time. Mister Leader told me not to. While you're in this block, everyone knows Mister Leader doesn't want you dead. But suppose you weren't in this block, in Mister Leader's block. Where would you be?"

"I don't know."

"You'd be in another block. We'll let you take your pick. There are the blocks where the Governor's totally lost control. They deliver food and remove the bodies. Would you like to go to one of those?"

Chekov didn't answer.

"Or there are blocks with guards who don't have someone like Mister Leader to keep things organised for them. What does a guard do, on a block like that, full of prisoners with nothing to lose?"

"I don't know."

"They go round in groups of six or so, they use their stun guns a good deal… Have you ever been hit by a stun?"

"Yes."

"Oh, yes, I suppose you would have. Did you like it?"

"No."

"Imagine getting that most days. How long would it be, do you think, before your brain was scrambled? And if a prisoner does something they don't like, they put him in a cell by himself to cool off. And when they come back maybe twelve hours later, do you know what that prisoner has usually done?"

"No," Chekov admitted.

"Hung himself. You'd think they'd take the prisoners' belts away, wouldn't you? They don't. They'll even help tie a noose if you can't do it for yourself. Of course, in a situation like that, guards can't really do much about prisoners being unpleasant to each other. So the weak go to the wall. Have you had enough to eat while you've been in here?"

"Yes." It wasn't strictly true, but Chekov suspected he was at least getting enough calories.

"That's because the Governor shows his appreciation for the good order in here by being generous. Other blocks don't get so much, and no one checks everyone gets their share. Do you want to have to fight for your food?"

"No."

"And of course, where order breaks down, where social constraints are absent, men start to behave like pack animals. Frustrations build up, and they turn on the weakest. You know what I mean."

"Yes." It was obscene, Chekov reflected, that his best hope of safety lay with someone like Leader. But he had to accept the situation. This was where he was, this was how it worked.

"Good. You're back on the right track. Get up."

Chekov rose to his feet, feeling profoundly helpless. He could tell this wasn't over yet.

"Now there's the matter of what happened to Drake."

"I didn't want Bruno to…"

The man narrowed his eyes. "Bruno was working for you. That means you pay the price. If you want to take it out on Bruno after…"

Chekov's sceptical expression made the man smile. "Look, you want someone to work for you, you've got to be able to control them. That's why you're better off letting Mister Leader take charge. You can see that, can't you?" A small gesture summoned the man's three companions to come forward and drag Chekov over to a rack of bunks. His arms were quickly secured to a side rail using the webbing from under the top mattress. They never let him have enough leverage to even struggle.

The first blow slammed him against the bunks, so that the top rail and his chin collided, his ribs hit the middle rail and the dull pain from the fist in his back ached up and down his spine.

"Enough?" someone asked, just as he was bracing himself for the next punch.

"Uhn?" Chekov grunted round what was left of his tongue. He seemed to have put his teeth through it in at least two places.

"Look, I have to give you a few bruises, or Drake won't be happy, but we don't have to go on if you understand now. Do you understand?"

Chekov swallowed blood. "If I won't do what Leader tells me, I'll be moved to another block. I understand. And I'm better off here. And if I do stay here, I don't make trouble for Leader or any of his… his men. Is that what you want me to say?"

"Mm." The man didn't sound as if he was quite sure Chekov meant it, but hands started to untie the webbing round his wrists. Chekov thought of Kirk's letter. The final injunction to 'uphold the ideals of Starfleet', or whatever platitude Kirk had used, still grated as if on raw flesh, but he couldn't help asking himself if he was living up to that. Surely Kirk wouldn't require it of him if it wasn't possible? Leader was going to carry on, whether Chekov subscribed or not. The Governor seemed to approve of Leader, as far as Chekov could judge from his mumbled comments about the block. Probably that was why Chekov was here, because Leader maintained order, of a kind. Upholding the ideals of Starfleet… Well, he was surviving, and he probably wasn't making things any worse for anyone else. The ensign tried to convince himself that that was a start.

***

"I was careful," Bruno was still muttering, when their work brought them within communicating distance of each other. "I coul've waited till he was on the top landing." He shoved a table aside to mop underneath it. "I coul've held him by his heels and dropped him head first."

The supervising guard was ignoring them, maybe because Bruno seemed happy to work while he grumbled.

"I coul've broken his neck firs' then dropped him."

Chekov leaned on his mop, noting that the guard's attention was somewhere else for the moment. "You could have killed him."

"So what?"

"Look, Bruno, I am grateful for your help, but this is not working. You won't do either of us any good by annoying Leader. He is in charge in here, and if I stay on the right side of him…"

"You don' need to worry 'bout Leader. I'll look out for you."

"You can't! You can't protect me against guards, and Leader has too many men for you to protect me from him. You weren't even here when I needed you. It's no good, Bruno. It won't work. I'm better off trusting Leader to keep me safe."

Bruno was silent for a moment, then he looked up from his mopping. "You can' be one of Leader's men. He runs drugs, runs boys…"

"What?"

"Oh, he don' do that himself, but sometimes you get some kid put in here, young and pretty like, he'll fin' someone will do him favours in return for that kid bein' in their cell. You'll see. You'll see, if someone asks 'fyou can be put in their cell sometime. Leader'll just care what he c'n get for you. Nothin' else. You don' wan' trust Leader."

"I'll make my own decisions about who to trust!"

"You were go'to see my girlfrien', when you get out…"

"I'm not going to get out! Can't you get that straight!"

"I was only tryin' to do what you wanted."

Chekov swallowed his anger. "I know. And what I want now is that you stop. You beat up Drake, or whatever his name was, so Leader had his men beat me up. It didn't gain us anything."

"Leader had you beat up?" Bruno frowned. "I'll…"

"No, you will not! Just leave it!"

The guard swung round at the sound of raised voices. "Hey! You two should be working, not arguing." He came over to see how much they'd done. "You," pointing at Bruno, "finish up in here, boy. And you go stack chairs."

Chekov abandoned his mop and bucket, glad to obey and get away from Bruno. His stomach was churning to match his thoughts. Leader had seemed like a reasonable compromise until a moment ago, but he could see how naive he'd been. Of course someone like that would have a finger in all the immoral undercurrents of jail life. And of course Leader would sell anyone. It might suit him to have Chekov here, as a shield against trouble, but there was nothing to stop him exploiting the ensign in the meantime in whatever way he saw fit. Like everyone else, what did he have to lose?

***

"Chekov?"

Lights-out in the cells happened abruptly, but the fluorescent glare from the corridor strip lighting made sleep difficult.

The Bear hung over the edge of the top bunk and stared miserably at Chekov. He'd watched the ensign undress earlier, his dark eyes tracing the bruises. "I'm sorry." The huge man pronounced the words as if they were a charm of some sort. He frowned when they didn't work. "I said, I'm sorry."

"Okay."

"Really."

"Yes. Okay."

The frame of the triple bunk was bolted into the wall, but it still shook as the Bear shifted his weight.

"Chekov?"

He must have dozed off. His blankets had slipped and he was cold. "What is it?"

"Did Leader hurt you?"

"Shut up."

"They hurt me."

"What?" Chekov thought about that for a moment, trying to persuade himself he'd misheard. "Who hurt you?"

There was no answer from above. Chekov knelt up and leaned out of his bunk so that his face was a few inches from the back of Bruno's head. "Who hurt you?"

"Leader's men," Bruno said shortly, without turning.

"Badly? Did they hurt you badly?"

"S'my business."

"Oh, God." The ensign sank back under his covers.

"Chekov, if you're not go'to get out, no one is. Not no one. Never. None of us. I didn' do something that bad. Really I didn'. I don' wan' to stay here forever, not always. I wan' to go home. I won' hurt no one again. If they'd let me go home, to my girlfrien', I woul'n do anythin' bad. Not anythin'. Really. I'd promise. I'm tellin' you the truth. I am…" The giant was weeping. After a moment the sobs stopped. "They're evil, lockin' us up like this. Tha's what they are."

"Bruno, you should go to sleep. If someone catches you talking…"

There were muffled grunts and gulps from above, blending into bass snoring. The Bear seemed to have fallen asleep at last. The underside of the upper bunk faded out of focus as the ensign let his mind wander from one uncomfortable train of thought to another.

Plainly it wasn't going to be easy to jettison Bruno. Like a big eyed mongrel puppy, if neither so appealing nor so attractive, the prisoner seemed to be worming himself under Chekov's skin. Well, he'd fight it. He'd ditch Bruno, in a way the man couldn't ignore, at the first opportunity. Chekov turned over, thumping his fists on his bolster to flatten the lumps.

***

The prison sickbay was again threaded with queuing prisoners. Chekov found his heart pounding uncertainly. What would McCoy have done? Given him what he'd asked for? Or denied it? The very fact that he had been called here at all suggested the former, but surely McCoy wouldn't have given in… and if he hadn't, what would he have done instead? Did he have any idea of the consequences for Chekov if he didn't play along with the guards demands? Prisoners were emerging from the room where the queue ended, swearing and muttering. One or two looked worried. Very worried. Maybe this wasn't the room where they dispensed drugs at all. Maybe it was something worse. There seemed to be a larger than usual proportion of guards about.

Suddenly, an argument appeared to break out in the dispensary. Six extra guards pushed inside and more drifted over to stalk up and down the line of waiting prisoners. One man in prison uniform was dragged out of the room and taken away.

Then someone else emerged from the dispensary. Someone in police uniform, black: guards wore olive green. He surveyed the line with icy distaste before going back inside. About twenty minutes later, Chekov found himself at the front of the queue.

"Name?"

"Chekov…"

"Number?"

"Five seven two four."

"Right, twenty four. We've received notification that you require synnatrine. Why?"

"Uh… for… for respiratory problems," Chekov bluffed. He should have been ready. He should have thought. But what the hell was synnatrine?

"Is synnatrine indicated for 'respiratory problems'?" the policeman demanded of the bored looking individual on the other side of a table littered with cartons and tubs of medicines.

The doctor looked up at Chekov and smiled condescendingly. "If you didn't want the patient to recover."

"Why? What is it?"

"It's a mild sedative, not a particularly useful or effective one. If anything it would depress the breathing, make any problems worse. It also produces mild disorientation, nausea and a crashing headache if you take even a little too much. It's not a drug you'd take for fun."

"Who asked you to get this stuff?" the policeman asked Chekov direct.

This was obviously a clamp down on the very ruse that Chekov had been forced into by the guard. Chekov had realised by now that playing it straight was unlikely to get him anywhere. If anything, keeping quiet now would — might — help the guard involved to get over his disappointment.

"No one asked me to get — synnatrine."

"Of course not. They asked you to get detamil, or neurodex, or…"

"Yes," the doctor interrupted. "Synnatrine looks pretty much like neurodex." He picked up a small bottle and tipped half a dozen bottle green tablets into his hand. "It's designed to dissolve slowly in the stomach, so a patient can conceal it in his mouth until later, even swallow it and bring it up to order. But here's where the prisoner's pet doctor's been really clever. Neurodex will have no effect, say one dose in ten. He could pass this off as Neurodex and get away with it, for a while."

"Is synnatrine controlled?" the policeman demanded of one of his colleagues. Apparently it wasn't. Chekov silently released a sigh. Much as he hated McCoy right now, the feeling didn't extend to wanting his company in here.

He waited to be dismissed. Presumably they'd want to get to the people who were seriously intending to supply the demand for drugs in here.

"Well, he can take it then," the policeman decided.

"Okay," the doctor agreed. "According to this he's supposed to take it four hourly. So I imagine they thought I'd give him thirty capsules and let him walk out of here…"

"Or drag him in six times a day and have him throw up and pass them on one at a time," the policeman agreed. "We'd be neglecting our duty if we didn't make sure he got the benefit."

The doctor switched on the screen of his computer. "I'll prescribe it as a single injection in a slow release formula. That'll intensify the initial side effects, but won't reduce its therapeutic effectiveness."

Chekov looked from one man to the other, while the doctor turned to a metal cabinet on the wall behind the desk. Surely, if he didn't need the drugs, the logical response would simply be to refuse to prescribe them. He hadn't done anything wrong… he clearly hadn't intended to do anything wrong, except to placate the bullies who'd pushed him into this in the first place.

"I… I don't need the synnatrine. One of the guards threatened me, unless I obtained drugs for him. I don't know his name, but…"

"Don't bother," the policeman snapped. "Nothing will happen to him and he'll just take it out on you. Won't he? Didn't he warn you?"

"Then why are you…"

"We're looking for the doctors who are prepared to prescribe. And yours hasn't done anything criminal, yet. I think this'll teach him not to try it again. As for whoever told you to do this, he's already on the inside. It doesn't matter to me which colour uniform he's wearing."

"Roll up your sleeve." The doctor held out a hypo.

"No. I don't need it."

The doctor smiled again. " And I'm not going to start having wrestling matches with my patients."

Chekov looked around at the guards and policemen, all of whom seemed to be merely waiting for the doctor to ask them to assist. He fumbled to unfasten his cuff and pushed the sleeve up to his shoulder as well as he could, praying that the doctor, if he was a doctor and not merely a meat processing technician with delusions of grandeur, was exaggerating the side effects to mislead the policemen. The drug stung as it hissed under his skin. He waited for something to happen. After a moment, he realised there were twice as many people watching him. Then the pain started.

He was vaguely aware of someone dragging him into a toilet cubicle and leaving him there while his stomach tried to turn itself inside out.

***

"What are we doing in here?" Chekov surveyed the dirty little room Bruno had unexpectedly brought him to following the evening meal. It contained four rows of plastic chairs, inelegantly wired together. A prisoner was picking his way through the seats, putting a tattered sheet of paper on each one. Chekov still hadn't worked out any pattern in the way 'free association' followed some meals and not others, but Bruno seemed better prepared. He usually managed to lead Chekov away from the idle and irritable groups of men in the main hall at the heart of the block, to some alternative, better supervised, location.

"Havin' a rest," Bruno explained on this occasion. "Sunday." He sat down on the nearest chair and began folding his piece of paper concertina style. Still puzzled, Chekov came and sat next to him. After being thrown out of sickbay, still shaky and lightheaded, he felt as if he'd sleepwalked through the rest of the day. Maybe that was why people took drugs in the first place, not for any high, but for the sense of not truly being in an unbearable reality. But with his head still aching and his stomach turning somersaults at even the smell of food, it wasn't an experience he was going to repeat. If they called him back to sick bay in five days time for another dose… What the hell could he do about it if they did? One day at a time, he told himself. Or just one hour…

Other men were filing into the room in ones and twos, ignoring Chekov and his companion and taking seats, spread out as far as possible from one another.

The prisoner in charge of the papers had now moved to the back of the room, and after looking out of the door, as if for tardy but welcome guests, he shut the door and returned to the front. "Welcome, brothers…"

Chekov looked at Bruno.

The big man shrugged. "We c'n talk in here."

That did indeed seem to be the case. No one paid any obvious attention to the prisoner who appeared to be leading a vaguely Christian form of religious worship, and he in turn seemed unconcerned that he was making no impression on his congregation. There was a murmur of quiet conversation, but most of the men seemed content to close their eyes and just sit. Maybe they were listening, Chekov thought.

Two men in the row behind the ensign were gambling. There was a clatter of dice but they seemed to be playing wordlessly. Bored by the preacher's mumbling, Chekov turned to watch them.

"Wan' in?" One of them asked him.

"I don't have anything to bet with."

"Drugs?" the other suggested.

Chekov narrowed his eyes. "No."

"Food?"

"What?"

"S'always somone's hungry in here," Bruno explained, turning to join in the conversation. "So someone wants your food, and losin' it makes enough difference to make the bet exciting. Don' be stupid, Chekov. You don' need it."

"Fuck off, Bear. He don' need you to tell him what to do."

"So, d'you wan' in?" The two were like eager salesmen, closing on a good prospect.

"Uh, no, thank you."

"Well, you c'n bet a day's meals, maybe win some blacks, some twelves…"

Chekov looked round to Bruno for a translation.

"Drugs. You don' wan' them."

"Stay out of it, Bruno."

The ensign glanced guiltily at the preacher, aware that their conversation was no longer at whisper level. The man had stopped talking and was looking at him in turn, with a sort of despairing smile.

"The dice are loaded anyways," Bruno threw in.

Suddenly there was a knife in one man's hand and a row of chairs lying on their backs as the two gamblers stood. The knife waved threateningly between Chekov and his protector.

"You can't do that in here," the preacher warned them, absurdly impotent. "This is a…"

The chairs were constricting Chekov's movements, and anyway, he wasn't sure he could deal with both men before one of them hurt either him or Bruno. He eased the row of chairs in front of them away, trying to clear some space.

"Yeah, run away," one of the men said snidely.

Chekov was disciplined enough not to react to that, but he felt he had a duty to stand by Bruno, even if their protection deal was one-sided on the face of it. He could go for help, but he wasn't sure where he'd find a guard, or even if a guard would react quickly enough to do much good.

He glanced up to see if there was a surveillance camera but was distracted by a sudden yell of outrage. The knife wielder's overalls were slashed open down one sleeve and Bruno had the knife. Or Chekov thought he did. A moment later, the Bear's hands were empty again.

The gamblers salvaged their dice and as much face as they could by retreating noisily to the back row of chairs, leaving their former seats lying on their backs. Bruno didn't sit down again until they'd settled back to their gaming.

"Thank you…" Chekov began hesitantly.

"You listen," Bruno growled, taking him by surprise. "I'm s'posed to protec' you, you got t' let me do it. You got t'get right out my way. Not try to do somethin' stupid. I protect you. Not you protect me. Un'erstan'?"

"I'm sorry. I…"

"Jus' so you un'erstan'."

Chekov sat down too. Bruno's outburst had shaken him. He felt even less in control of the situation than he had when they were under attack. "I understand. All right? I understand."

***

"Visit schedule for today."

That phrase was the signal for the only willing, attentive silence in the block. While there were many inmates, Chekov among them, who had no reason to pay any attention to the list that followed, they still fell silent.

"Five three nine seven, Carter. Four zero two zero, Mostel. Five seven two four, Chekov…"

"Hey, that's you!"

"Ssshh!" A furious hiss of demands for silence almost drowned the next two names.

"I thought we were only permitted one visit a year…"

"No. Family's once a month. You got family here?"

"No." Chekov shook his head disbelievingly. "My family is on Earth. They couldn't have…" He shook his head again. "Who counts as family?"

"Parents, wife, kids, brothers, sisters, any woman you been living with." The convict in the next seat to Chekov shrugged resignedly. "I got all of those and there ain't none of them visited me yet."

"Report to gate six immediately. Gate six immediately." Chairs scraped back. No one else moved, letting the lucky ones out of the crowded hall as quickly as possible. Chekov just sat there.

"Go on. 'F you're late they won' let you through. Go on."

The man was like a child at someone else's birthday party. He gave Chekov an encouraging shove.

"I don't know who it is."

"What the hell does it matter? Hey, 'f they screwed up and it's my wife, tell her I'd like to…"

"Why should I bother? Just so that I can sit a couple of metres away from someone I can barely see through the wire…"

"Whoever she is, blow her a kiss for me."

"Smell her perfume," someone else suggested.

"Tha's why he won' go," a third man pointed out. "He di'n'get a shower this mornin'."

"Hey! Two four! Get off your ass and get to gate six! Now!"

A guard was pushing between the tables towards Chekov, looking disproportionately annoyed. He gestured the ensign to his feet. "It ain't voluntary, two four. Family visits are f'the benefit of pris'ners dependants. Pris'ners will cooperate with visiting procedures. Move."

Whoever it was, Chekov told himself, they might have come a long way, or gone to considerable trouble to make the visit. He stood up and followed the guard.

***

"Position seventeen."

Chekov fingered his tag unhappily as the queue edged forward. His ear had only just healed up from McCoy's visit. Given that he'd been in here for four and a half days, if his parents had set out immediately, and there had been a fast ship leaving just then… it still wasn't possible that they could be here. More to the point, he didn't want them to be here. His uncle was a commercial pilot. If he'd happened to be close by it could be him. He'd quite like to see his uncle Fyodor. He wouldn't take the whole situation too personally, or say anything overly optimistic about getting Chekov out, or weep. Did uncles count as family?

"Two four, position twenty one."

He pushed through the door into the big hall and walked smartly across to his assigned cubicle. If last time had been typical, he'd then have to sit and wait while his visitor walked the even longer distance across the other half of the room. So he'd know who it was and have time to decide how he wanted to react. Last time, he'd been so sure it would be Captain Kirk he'd never really got himself back together after the disappointment. Not that he regretted his rudeness to McCoy. Not any more.

Three visitors came in through the far door at once, all female. As they split and headed in different directions, Chekov recognised Uhura. She was out of uniform, wearing a pretty, more than usually modest dress in shades of grey and purple. She looked clean and beautiful.

The ensign felt a sudden almost overwhelming desire to leave before she reached him.

"Hi." She sat down and folded her hands in front of her on the table.

"How did you..?"

"We forged a marriage certificate."

"Oh."

"I'd have said I was your sister, but…"

"A marriage certificate?"

"Well… I suppose it was rather a cheek, but… We couldn't just leave."

He stared at her. "Lieutenant, tell me, does wire netting scramble audio signals? Because Doctor McCoy didn't seem to hear anything I said to him, and now I'm beginning to think I misunderstood everything he said to me."

Uhura reached out and touched the wire with the tips of her fingers. "Pavel, we're needed — somewhere else. And the Enterprise being here isn't actually making any difference in terms of getting you out. It might even be making it worse. You know we're not going to turn the phasers on the government, but certain people might think we're just hanging around to suggest that we would. And this is the stubborn, insecure type of regime that will dig its heels in and refuse to back down as long as they think we're waving a big stick. If we agree they have a perfect right to run their world how they like, they might just quietly let you out the back door — at least that's what we're hoping."

"And I'm not even allowed to know where you're going."

"Pavel, that's not important. We've talked to a lot of people. In the government and in the opposition. We're not going to make a fuss, at least to start with, and they're going to work on it behind the scenes. You just have to keep a low profile."

"What? You mean I can't book a front row seat at the first night of the opera? Or be seen eating in good restaurants? I'll try to remember. I don't know why I bother to listen to anything you say…"

"Please, don't be this way. Captain Kirk couldn't say anything in his letter… You did get his letter? I spent hours going through the censor's guidelines working out what he could say."

"So it was written by a committee."

"Please, Pavel."

"And as for the censor, you were wrong about that too. I don't imagine the censors ever read the guidelines anyway. I was shown it because someone took pity on me and pulled it out of the system."

"Did you get any of the other letters?"

"No."

"I imagine it may be rather slow, if they have to read them all. You will. There are two from your parents, and…"

"Stop it. I don't want to know. When are you leaving?"

"In two days. We have to rendezvous with the… with another ship. And we can't do that any earlier."

"Two days? Is that definite?"

She frowned at his sudden vehement concern over their schedule. "It's as fixed as anything ever is in Starfleet. Why?"

"I want to know. Why shouldn't I want to know?"

"I don't know. You seem to… It's almost as if you want to believe we'd just abandon you. You know we wouldn't. The captain's seconding Fryer to the Starfleet Office here, to turn every stone he can and keep us informed…"

Fryer was the Enterprise's legal researcher, a good friend of Chekov's. The ensign scowled as if he despised the man.

"Pavel, what else can I do? If I was wrong to come…"

Chekov frowned at her. "I don't know what to say to you. If I was sitting where you are I would not know what to say to me."

"Well, don't worry about it. I realise it's difficult. I'm not going to get annoyed with you…"

"Shut up!" He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. "I'm not apologising. I don't care if you don't like what I say. I'm not going to tell you I'm all right, because I'm not. I'm not all right at all. And when I have to talk to you, it's worse. You were wrong to come and I wish you hadn't."

"Okay," she said, after a moment of silence. Even the people either side of them seemed to have run out of things to say. "Shall I go?"

He glared at her. She looked close to tears, but he was still too angry to stop and think about she was feeling. "I'm not going to answer that. You do what you want."

Uhura sighed. "I want to be here with you. Is your arm okay?"

"What?"

"Doctor McCoy said you'd hurt your arm. Is it okay?"

"My arm?"

"Chekov? You had a dressing on your left arm. You'd been in a fight. What's the matter with you?" She bit off her exasperation too late.

"It's okay."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." He frowned. "Wasn't that dangerous?"

"Wasn't what dangerous?"

"The certificate, you said…"

"Oh no. I was joking about forging it. It was a Vanusssian nuptial license. As commander of a space vessel that's capable of spending more than ten Vanusssian solar cycles in deep space, Captain Kirk is authorised to marry anybody to anybody else, with or without their consent. They don't even have to be on board at any point. It's absolutely legal. We checked."

"Oh."

"Does that make it better or worse?"

"I don't know. I was just… It was such a stupid idea. Did Fryer think of it?" Once the fear that Uhura had put herself on the wrong side of Demosian law had been dispelled, Chekov was enraged that the stunt had been achieved without the need for anyone to take risks on his behalf. "Since he's my best legal hope now, I'd like to know."

"Oh, Pavel. Isn't there anything I can say? I know it looks hopeless, I know it must be awful in there — this room is bad enough — but… I thought it would help if I came. I wouldn't care what you said to me if it made you feel better, but I can see I'm just making it worse…"

"Why the hell do Vanusssians do that?"

Uhura blinked. "They have a strong religious requirement that they marry before they die, but their young men seem to have an equally strong aversion to getting paired off. So if a ship's in danger, the Captain just declares his entire crew married to whatever single females he can think of at the time. Presumably it causes horrendous problems if the ship survives…"

"Or if two ships get into danger simultaneously and both survive, and the Captains both thought of the same women…" Chekov speculated, deadpan.

"Well I don't know if they practice polyandry, or if maybe women provide their names in advance to a single ship… I mean, if the men are that reluctant, it might be their best bet for finding a husband."

"But then the women would have an interest in putting their name on more than one list, to maximise their chance of success.

"That's true. Perhaps the first marriage takes precedence…"

"Your time's up."

Uhura cursed under her breath, at herself mostly, for not finding a way to let Chekov talk about something other than himself from the start. She stood up. "You can write to us too, you know. Please do."

He shrugged, scowling at her. She'd thought he'd almost smiled a moment earlier, but if so, it hadn't lasted.

They both hesitated, each unwilling to be the first to turn away. Then Chekov swung round and marched off, leaving Uhura to say 'goodbye' to his back.

***

"You always call your wife 'Lieutenant'?" the guard demanded of Chekov when he reached the gate.

"It is a Vanusssian custom."

"Weird," the guard said. Chekov kept his face blank and didn't argue. He'd write. He knew he was allowed to write two letters a month, but he had no idea where he was supposed to obtain paper or pen, or even access to a chair and a flat surface to sit down and put the two together. He wondered vaguely if his 'letter' to McCoy had somehow gone through official channels and used up half his allowance already. He should write to his parents too… perhaps he could include a letter to them along with an apology to the lieutenant and she would forward it.

At the gate he was stopped by a guard he hadn't seen before. "Twenty four?"

It still took a moment to recognise the number as meaning him. "Yes… Sir."

"That way." The man pointed along a corridor that wasn't part of the block. "And move!"

Stubbornly, Chekov walked. "Move!"

He walked a little faster, but not much. At the far end of the corridor a breath of fresh air hit him like a cold shower. A double door swung open, and a couple of guards were standing by it, checking prisoners off against printed lists. He was lined up with about a dozen men, including Bruno, and eventually sent out into the grey morning.

Between two wings of the prison was what had formerly been an open space. Now it was full of scaffolding and machinery. Grit crunched underfoot. The sky above was the colour of damp concrete and the chill air made his freshly punched earlobe ache.

"What's happening?" Chekov asked the next man.

"Work," he was told.

"What sort of work?"

Another prisoner, one Chekov recognised vaguely as a member of Leader's inner circle, turned back. "Do as you're told. Don't talk."

The noise was almost unbearable. Machines were carving out shallow trenches across the narrow strip of land, while others were churning out a thick grey sludge and pouring it into shells clumsily constructed from fibreboard panels.

Chekov was directed to a production line dismantling scaffolding. Almost before the ensign had got into place he realised chunks of metal were hurtling towards him and his fellow workers from civilians working higher up. He dodged and a clamp hit the ground beside him and rang like a bell.

"Pick it up and put it in the skip," Leader's henchman told him shortly.

"But…" No gloves, no headgear, no one in charge as far as he could see. "This is dangerous. Someone's going to get hurt…"

"Oh yeah? And I know who. Shut up and do what you're told."

The work had sweat dripping inside his clothes while the cold metal robbed his hands of feeling, saving the grazes and bruises for later suffering. In a quiet moment, while the men dismantling the poles and planks moved down a level, Chekov edged up to Leader's man. "What's going on?"

"There was a riot at a camp they were using for low risk prisoners a couple of days ago. It was burnt out. They got to make space for twenty five thousand extra here by yesterday at the latest."

"But this is ridiculous. Why don't they use replicators to…"

"Probably cost too much. Concrete's cheap and convict labour's free, so that's what the gov'nor's using."

"Twenty five thousand?" Chekov tried to visualise that in terms of cells and communal space and realised he couldn't. "But those foundations…"

"That's not foundations. We're already half a dozen storeys up. They're just stripping the roof off the layer below to make service connections."

A behemoth of a machine suddenly started to vomit the sludge into a maze of fibreboard. Convicts with shovels were clearly supposed to be speeding its progress through the template of a hundred new cells, but they made less than willing workers.

"What is beneath here?"

"PI," the other man answered Chekov, and then the rain of cast iron started again.

There were, Chekov realised now, skylights set into what he'd taken for solid ground. They'd been covered over with corrugated metal but here and there the sheets had been pushed aside and not replaced.

There were people in there, he thought, who had probably seen daylight for the last time ever today.

The scaffolding was eventually removed and Chekov was sent to shovel aggregate, working around the skylights where men in civilian gear were bolting sheet metal in place to close them off permanently.

The shift was eight hours long, and by the end of that time dusk was already falling. Floodlights were switched on to bathe the building site in harsh white illumination and convicts from another block came out to form a night shift. The noise of the machines seemed to reverberate twice as loud and long in the miserable half darkness, and Chekov, stumbling back inside, was half aware that the din would penetrate throughout all the adjacent blocks if it kept up. He didn't think it would keep him awake though. He'd done remarkably little work, given the frenetic activity all around, but he was cold to the bone, every muscle ached and his ears were buzzing

There was some hold up in getting them back to their own block. Sardined in the gloomy corridor, Chekov found himself next to his informer again. "Why don't we just refuse to work?" he mused aloud. "How could they force us?"

The man looked surprised. "Oh, yeah," he said. "You were off visitin', weren't you. Well, according to the Gov'nor, we have a choice. He's only got so much to pay for building and ever'thing else. If we want to eat, we work…"

"What?"

"Well, he ain't quite goin' to starve us. But anyone who won't work gets only one meal a day."

"Surely he can't…"

"You don't believe it, you try going on strike, Chekov." The man smiled. "See what Leader has to say about that."

***

That evening dragged, even with lights out as early as it was. Chekov remembered his resolution to write but it seemed that paper was only available as part of 'education'. Presumably at some point he'd be summoned for half an hour of basic literacy tuition. The idea almost amused him. The Governor must have a list of basic facilities the prison was obliged to supply. Reading lessons, but not daylight. Library books, but not justice. Anyway, his hands were too sore tonight. He felt bone tired, too tired to think about writing. Eventually, the cell door clanged shut as the last man returned from the showers.

Sonics did nothing to ease anyone's aches and pains while the sour stink of the men whose turn to shower wouldn't come until tomorrow filled the cramped space. A buzz of bad temper vibrated in the air. Bruno squabbled with one man after another over this and that. Chekov just took to his bunk and turned his face to the wall. At least it seemed that the construction machines had been turned off.

The pitch of the argument suddenly rose sharply. Then the bunk rattled as a body was thrown against it. Someone started yelling.

"Shut up!"

Chekov turned now to see what was happening, even though he still didn't want to be involved. The Bear had someone's head in an armlock and his victim was kicking at the cell door with his bare heels, rattling it.

"Let him go, Bruno. Please."

The Bear gave the man's neck one last vicious twist and released him. "Why?"

The prisoner backed away from Bruno, rubbing his ears. "You sh'd keep your grizzly mor'in order, spaceman."

"You shouldn't annoy him."

"I didn' annoy him. I said I'd like t'screw your wife, tha's all."

It took Chekov a moment to work out what the man meant.

"Are you goin' to take that lyin' down too?"

Chekov reluctantly admitted to himself that the now aggressor looked scrawny only because he was standing next to Bruno, who was currently ignoring both of them with an expression of wounded self-righteousness.

"Since you can't get out of here, I don't care what you'd like to do."

"You wer'n' very pleased t'see her, were you? I guess you like bein' the Bear's cub better. Shame you two can' get a cell on your own."

The man waited a moment to see what Chekov would do. Then he leaned forward so that he was looming over the ensign. "Isn' it? Shame you two can' be alone together?"

Chekov rolled over, turning his back, only to be dragged out of his bunk by his shoulders, winding up in a disorganised heap at Bruno's feet. His patron looked down at him bitterly. "If a man said tha' 'bout my girlfrien' I'd kill him."

Chekov stood up with all the dignity he could muster. "She is quite capable of taking care of herself. It is not necessary for me to kill anyone."

"Wha'd he mean, you like bein' the Bear's cub?"

"I think he's implying that you and I are engaging in a homosexual relationship."

Bruno slapped Chekov across the mouth with one enormous hand, knocking him back across the room. Then he grabbed the other man by the ears and slammed his face into the bars of the opposite bunks. Everyone else backed away, as if afraid where the blood might fly, but Bruno stopped. "I's not necessary for me to kill anyone," he told his victim, then he turned back to Chekov. "You make jokes like that and I'll show you how much I'm missin' my girl for real, okay?"

"Yes, I'm sorry." Chekov frowned at the threat. If it meant what he thought it meant, it didn't seem entirely logical.

"You shoul'n't say thin's like that 'bout your frien's."

"Okay. I'm sorry."

The Bear turned back to the rest of the men in the cell. "He's married, he's not like that. And I got a girlfrien' outside. We just look out for each other. Tha's all."

Everyone nodded with self-serving zeal.

Bruno was evidently satisfied. He climbed into his bunk. Chekov followed suit. He lay there, feeling his lip swell, looking at the curve Bruno's bulk made in the straps above him. As Sulu was fond of saying, with friends like he seemed to have, who needed enemies?

***

The Enterprise was under attack. Red alert sirens were almost drowned out by the screams and concussions of the ship's hull tearing itself into fragments. Chekov was hanging on to the barrel of a phaser rifle, and someone was trying to wrestle it away from him…

"Wake up! You gotta wake up!"

He opened his eyes and struggled to make out Bruno's silhouette in the pathetic glow of the orange emergency light over the door. He could smell smoke, and the noise was men's voices yelling, echoing round the hard interior of the block. And doors rattling, and bunk frames thudding against the walls. "What…"

"S'riot, or som'thin. You stay with me. I'll take care of you."

"Yes."

"Get dressed." Bruno pushed Chekov's overalls at him and leaned against the bunk, waiting for him to struggle into them. The other inhabitants of the cell were also dressing, swearing at each other as they got in each other's way in their haste. One man was banging monotonously on the locked door of the cell, demanding to be let out. Two more were in the corner by the hand basin, soaking their clothes with scooped handfuls of cold water.

"Fire?" Chekov asked. Starfleet training made it almost impossible to panic, even when the air around him was quivering with frustrated terror. Bruno, though, was presumably just too stupid to be scared.

"Maybe. Jus' be ready to move. Keep cool."

The door swung open and was filled with armed guards before the prisoners could react. The one who'd been hammering on it was pushed back inside.

"Chekov, five seven two four. Out here, now."

"Hey!"

"What about the rest of us?"

"Wha's goin' on?"

"Stay back! Stay put!" One guard, phaser thrust out in front of him, pushed his way forward and hauled Chekov out from behind the other prisoners. He swung his phaser up to keep them under control as two more guards grabbed Chekov's arms and pulled him out of the cell. The hallway was rank with the smell of smoke, and barely brighter than the cell. The door clanged shut behind Chekov and he swung round, pulling himself free of the guards' grip. "What about…"

"Shut up. If you won't walk you can be dragged. Move."

"Chekov!" The voice rang out from behind the door, whether from fear at what was to happen to him or fear at being abandoned, the ensign couldn't tell. The panic finally infected him. He lashed out at the guards, only to find himself backed into the wall, staring at their phasers. The sirens still screamed. A hundred cell doors jumped in their frames under the pounding of frantic fists.

"What's happening?" He lowered his arms. "Just tell me what's happening… Please."

"Governor wants to see you. Don't know why. Turn roun'."

The reasonable tone of the answer, as much as anything, persuaded the ensign to cooperate. So this was it. What Leader had predicted was happening. They were moving him out of here before they disposed of everyone else. There wasn't anywhere safe in here.

He was marched the length of the block, to the landings by the visiting hall. It looked different. Normally, there barriers in place to control movement from one area to another. The barriers had been pushed aside and men in unfamiliar uniforms milled about, shouting.

Chekov's escort didn't even glance at the confusion. They pushed him towards the administration wing, and the Governor's office.

The klaxon's blare was muted. In contrast with the emergency lighting everywhere else, the corridor to the office was daylight bright. The secretary sat at her desk, coldly scrolling down a list of names on the screen of her computer. Chekov just knew she was deleting them.

"What's happening?" the ensign asked her. "Please?"

"There's been an accident in the building works to Unit 7. Part of the new structure has collapsed. Fortunately most of the construction workers were off site, or there would have been significant casualties."

"No one's been hurt?" He didn't believe it.

She stood up abruptly and took a coat from an open locker. "I think I may as well go home."

One of the guards put out a hand to stop her. "Uh, Mrs Keays, the Governor's orders are that no one's to leave the building until he gives clearance. There's to be a briefing for staff…"

"Are you saying I'm a prisoner here?"

"Emergency regulations." He seemed apologetic.

She dropped her coat on the floor. "Excuse me. I have to go wash my hands."

The guard nudged Chekov forward. "Go on. Go in."

The ensign had absolutely no idea what to expect. He pulled his shoulders back, the better to confront the unknown. The Governor's office was crowded and disordered. Part of the bookcase had transformed into a display screen on which a family played on a beach with the sort of glossy, plastic smiles normally reserved for advertising. The sound was drowned out by people talking into communicators, people yelling questions at each other, shouting orders and making demands. Chekov counted fifteen people in the room before he caught sight of the Governor, enthroned behind his desk, looking glazed and detached from the chaos.

"Chekov. Fetch him a chair, someone."

No one paid any attention.

"Then come and stand over here out of Maddie's way," the Governor continued, as if Chekov had politely declined the offer of a seat. The ensign squeezed past two senior guards who were hotly disputing something, each backing up their argument by reference to a plan of the prison on a small screen set into what Chekov had thought was an old-fashioned wooden desk. He wound up with his ear right by one of the display screen speakers, just in time for a fanfare of electronic trumpets.

"Just wanted to catch the news reports," the Governor apologised. "Be with you momentarily."

The all too familiar Capitol building, it's roofline still scarred and blackened, was floodlit in calm, green light, reflected off the rippled surface of an unseen pool, quite unlike the harsh white illumination used for the siege.

"…followed by a statement from Minister Karzowski on the current trade crisis," a voice announced. The view switched to the interior of the building. Chekov knew almost nothing about Demosian politics, but the talking head on the screen was momentarily subtitled as Ryan Jeffer, the Minister for Penal Affairs. Chekov shut out the babble around him and concentrated on the man whose policies had had such a devastating effect on his life.

"As promised," the Minister declared, "I'm bringing you an interim report on the operation of our new firm line on crime. And the news is mixed at this stage, as we anticipated, but the trend is clear. We are making progress and we will win." He stretched out a hand to adjust the orientation of an electronic prompt. "Crimes of fraud, tax evasion, forgery, drunkenness, vandalism, obtaining state aid by deception and illegal livestock movements have virtually ceased. There has been an apparent increase in murder, robbery with violence and, regrettably, resisting arrest. But the average citizen need not be concerned. These crimes are almost entirely restricted to zone four areas and the use of police cordons and intensive, proactive policing are successfully isolating the problem." Jeffer adopted a look of friendly determination. "We knew this would happen, as the final few members of the criminal classes were driven to ground. We're ready and their very desperation proves that we have the upper hand. However, to reassure the law-abiding majority, and to support our police and prison officers, as they put their lives at risk to maintain our safety, your government, of which I am proud to be a member, has decided to take one final step. From this moment, midnight on the seventeenth day of October, we have introduced the death penalty for the following offenses: Murder of a police officer, prison officer or elected member of government in the performance of his or her duties, substantial assault on the same class of persons, issuing or carrying out of threats against any of the above persons, and conspiracy to commit any of the above acts."

The minister's expression became more somber. "I know this step will not be universally welcomed. Believe me, I understand the reservations some of you have. But I cannot stand by and allow my officers to put their lives on the line knowing that I have not done all I can to protect them. I'm sure you'll accept that." Jeffer smiled again. "And it will work. We have achieved a situation where for anyone with any intelligence and self-respect, crime is no longer an option. There will always be a small minority who don't behave rationally: they are isolated, controlled, neutered. Once they are all behind bars, the problem will cease. We'll raise a new generation for whom crime will simply be unthinkable." He hesitated, before continuing with almost laughable gravity, "To those who have already given their lives in this battle, to anyone who thinks they've been harshly treated by the system we now have, I have this to say: Crime is our greatest enemy, far more destructive than any external threat to Demos. In our Terran history, millions of young men were proud to sacrifice their lives in the defense of our way of life. The sacrifice is no less honoured now."

There was applause from an unseen audience. "Bastard," someone said softly.

Chekov turned just as the Governor pressed the control to blank the screen. "Still," he continued in a louder voice, "seem to have kept the lid on it thus far."

"What has happened?" Chekov asked him.

"Topping off new Unit 7. Slight problem."

"Yes?"

"Seems, uh, seems structure insufficiently reinforced. Collapsed."

"On top of the PI unit?" Chekov asked, only superficially disbelieving. It was all too likely to be true, based on what he'd seen.

"Six levels… laying floors… framework gave way…"

"The roof of the PI unit…"

"Gave way."

Chekov did his best to be an officer and ignore his own narrow escape. "There may be survivors. The Enterprise…" If she was still in orbit…

"There are no survivors in PI. No survivors."

"There must be. Have you even looked?"

"No survivors."

"You don't even care, do you?"

"There are no survivors." The Governor suddenly frowned. "Of course there are no survivors. If there were… Any idea what would happen to someone who survived being buried in wet concrete? By the time you reached them, by the time you chipped them out, they'd have cooked. Of course they haven't survived."

"Transporters," Chekov said, remembering that in a low rated economy like Demos, it might not seem as obvious as it did to a native Terran employed by Starfleet. "You could get them out using transporters." He swallowed, lowered his voice. "You could use the Enterprise's transporters, sir."

"Interference grids, in the buildings," the Governor told him, gently enough. "Security."

"There are survivors. We could hear them screaming."

"Prisoners shouting. That's all. There are no survivors. Yes, Mahfee?"

A prison officer with double stripes on his cuffs gave Chekov a dirty look. "Sir, we've completed a review of the damage. The surveyor reports no need for emergency evacuations. Blocks A through J will need examination to determine what remedial work is required, and they'll have to be cleared tomorrow."

"Why?" the Governor demanded."

"No water or power, sir."

"Can't they manage for a few days…"

"The prisoners could, of course, but I wouldn't put my men at risk in that way," Mahfee replied adamantly. "And we couldn't expect civilian construction teams to go in there if the prisoners weren't properly supervised, could we?"

The Governor looked rather put out. "And the… the, uh, the status of the PI unit?"

"I think, and this is just a personal feeling, sir, we'd do best to just leave it. Flatten it out and build over it."

"My God," Chekov said.

Mahfee turned to him again. "May I ask what this prisoner is doing here, Governor? Nothing useful, I imagine."

"Wanted to be sure he was alive, in case of a leak."

"I'll find someone to escort him back to his cell." Mahfee stood aside to let Chekov out from behind the desk. The ensign hesitated to allow the Governor to protest his subordinate's presumption, but the man merely shook his head and muttered something.

"Sir?"

"Only wondering, Mahfee, why whole bloody place didn't come down, save us clearing up this mess."

"Excuse me, sir," Mahfee responded icily. "I have a job to do."

***

"This doesn't make sense."

Chekov glanced at Leader. The man was standing, looking over an iron railing at the top of a stairwell.

Their block had been closed down for structural repairs, and the slow business of transferring its inmates had begun. Chekov and Leader were part of a group of thirty convicts, accompanied by ten guards, who were currently 'in transit'. In a customary display of failed procedures, the keys for their appointed cells were missing.

"What worries me…" Leader ran a finger along the chipped paint of the rail. It came away with a black smear across it. At the bottom of the stairs, in the shadows, there were heaps of debris of some sort. "…is not knowing where they've gone."

"Who?"

"An empty cell block, Chekov. Think about it. Before I was arrested, a couple months ago now, the prison population was growing at about three thousand a week. They weren't building new facilities at that rate. And the system was already full. So where are they?"

Chekov thought about it. Obviously, some prisoners would have to be moved elsewhere while the damaged blocks around the former PI were repaired. "They could have been moved to a low security unit…"

"Don't be stupid. There are no low security units. There are no low security prisoners. We're all treated like killers, we all might as well be killers."

Chekov shook his head. "Why does this world have so many criminals? It's not a problem on Earth…"

"We imported Earth's problems. Took an underclass and continued to keep them in dead end jobs, slum housing, inadequate education…"

"Racial prejudice…"

"Don't blame me for that, Chekov. It's not something I subscribe to. I employ the best man for the job, always."

The ensign resisted the urge to disagree. "So what is your excuse? You don't seem to fit into the criminal underclass. You're not uneducated, or black ."

Leader laughed. "What are you? The parole officer? I could make excuses, but… I did it because I thought I could get away with it . I was greedy. Even greedier than this world routinely allows its owners to be. And I was fool enough to let my wife know what I was doing and she had a lover, and they saw a way to get their hands on my capital. So here I am. I'm not innocent. I'm only sorry I was caught."

Leader glanced round at the other prisoners. The guards had returned with the keys and were sorting out the group into tens. "Alpha, beta, gamma." A cell door was swung open and the first ten were hustled in with their bundled bed rolls. The Bear, without drawing attention to himself, had edged closer to Chekov and was in the same ten. The ensign frowned, but not directly at him.

The cell door banged shut. "Stack your kit." The guard nearest the door grabbed one of the bundles and started a pile by the door. With worried glances at each other, men released their possessions one by one, some retrieving small articles and transferring them to pockets.

"How do you get three pints in a pint pot?" Leader asked.

"We're going to sleep in shifts?" Chekov demanded. "But we've only just woken up…"

"And alpha are going straight back to bed. Chekov… I'm damn glad you're here. Because I think you're the one man in this whole place they can't afford to kill. I hope I don't underestimate their ingenuity… And I'm going to stick very close to you, until you're ready to help me get out of here."

"What?" Chekov packed his bedding tightly round his face cloth and toothbrush and straightened up, but Leader had turned away.

***

The next day brought a mail call for the first time since Chekov's arrival. He took his one letter away from the crowd around the guard who was handing out mail in strict numerical sequence. The envelope had been slashed open, resealed clumsily with brown tape, and the address — bad enough in itself: Government Penal Department 382 — supplemented by his number scrawled in orange crayon. The envelope had originally been handwritten, unlike the last one, and he was pretty sure who the letter was from: Sulu.

He sat down on the floor and leaned back against the wall, trying to work out what the letter would say. Would the helmsman tell him where the Enterprise was going? What was happening aboard? Presumably not. Presumably, as Uhura had made plain enough, he was now outside the magic circle of need-to-know. Anything Kirk or anyone else might be doing to free him would be censored. Chekov held the letter for a few seconds longer, checking his conclusion that it could contain nothing of interest for flaws, and then began to tear it up methodically, into neat squares, calculating that he could reduce it to twenty four such fragments before they became too small to grip. When he'd finished, he stacked the pieces and looked at the little column of paper held between his forefinger and thumb.

"I have some glue, if you should want it."

"No, thank you."

"And somewhere quiet, where you could concentrate on your little jigsaw puzzle."

"No!"

"Chekov…"

The ensign looked up at last. The prisoner who had been leading worship on Sunday had a bundle of books tucked under his arm. His hair was uncombed. He brushed nervously at his fringe as if his disordered appearance might be the reason for Chekov's disinterest in what he offered.

"New library," he said, smiling and tapping the books. "One benefit of moving."

"Why are you in here?" Chekov asked him. "Stealing the collection?" Such a crime seemed altogether too heinous for someone so ineffectual. "Oversleeping and being late for church?"

The man took the jibes as an invitation to join Chekov for a conversation. He sat down beside the ensign, laying his books reverently beside him. "I prefer not to talk about how I came to be here. What is important for all of us is what we do now…"

"But I want to know."

The priest's pale face reddened. "I, uh… I volunteered."

"What?"

"I didn't feel that I could minister to men with no hope unless I was in the same position. I felt called to be… to be a prisoner."

Chekov shook his head cynically. "When my great grandfather was a choirboy at the cathedral in Kiev, one of the priests tried to persuade him that he was called to do certain things too."

"No." The man reached out and touched the topmost book. "I… I dare say you'll find it laughable, but I set fire to a carpet in the Capitol. They put it out almost immediately, as I intended. But it was sufficient. Criminal damage." It sounded a little like bravado, as it might in a cell block full of murderers and embezzlers, not to mention abettors of terrorists. "So here I am."

"You did that deliberately, in order to spend the rest of your life in here?"

"Yes. Only of course, I'll get out in thirty years if I don't do… something else."

"Bozhe moi…"

"Precisely."

"I didn't mean…"

"I think you did."

"Well, what you did is admirable. Stupid… Since no one here seems at all impressed by it…"

"I haven't told anyone else."

"Then why..?"

"I'm not sure how to do it. I thought it might seem… frivolous, to people who had no choice but to be here. It might be inspiring if they were to discover it indirectly, but…"

Chekov frowned, sidetracked onto the question of whether he'd actually had a choice but to be here. Leader had, of course. But everyone? Had Bruno? If he had known himself, that breaking the deadlock with the terrorists would lead inevitably to this place, would he have chosen to let the other hostages, one by one, join Chanel on the ground while he stood by?

"You see, the trouble is, Chekov," the priest was continuing, "that this place is making people worse, not better. I thought with so little else to cling to, people would turn to God, but they don't. They turn to violence and threats to protect themselves and drugs to forget themselves. If you bring God into it, they just have to feel guilty too. And where will it get them?"

"How long have you been in here?"

"Twenty three days."

"And you have given up already?" Chekov asked. It came out crueller than he meant it to.

"How long have you been in here?" the priest retaliated.

"Six days."

The priest nodded at Chekov's column of paper. "And you've given up already?"

There wasn't really an answer. 'More than once…' Chekov wanted to say. But to admit to giving up more than once was to claim to have started again: to admit grasping at straws.

"I've been watching you."

"Why?"

"To see how you would cope. If you'd despair, or rage, or compromise with evil in order to survive."

"You make it sound… operatic."

"Perhaps that's my problem. My vision wasn't up to the depressing reality. The sinners don't want to be saved, and my love for them is insufficient to weather their unpleasantness."

Chekov smiled a little. "Is that a compliment?"

The priest raised his eyebrows. "Well, I may be a spiritual write off, but I do have glue. I imagine I just want to feel I'm doing something useful for five minutes."

"I don't want the glue."

"Ah."

"But thank you for talking to me. And… I'm sure you'll find someone who needs your help."

"You are… innocent, aren't you?"

Chekov frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You broke the law… but you didn't do anything that you considered to be wrong?"

"I can see the sense of refusing to cooperate with terrorists. I just think… thought… that refusing would have been the worst option in this case."

"You've changed your mind?"

"No. I am simply not thinking about it any more. So, I'm innocent, and you are innocent. Tell me, in thirty years time, is that going to seem a very important thing?"

The priest smiled. "Innocence is a very important thing at any time. But I'm not innocent…"

"Because you burned a carpet? For a good reason? You think…"

"In retrospect, I'm here for the sin of pride. I'm here because I thought I, Tancredo Ayej, could come in here and save everyone. That is the sin that disqualifies me." Ayej nodded, as if he'd just worked this out. "Such arrogance. It is God who saves, not man."

Chekov climbed to his feet. Ayej was beginning to sound as dangerous as most of the other inmates of this place.

"It is God who saves, and God who provides the lamb…"

"That's what Leader said…" Chekov blurted. "He was relieved I was here because they wouldn't dare let anything happen to me."

"A passover lamb?"

"No…" The ensign hesitated. "This is stupid. Ask anyone in here, they'll claim they didn't do anything wrong. People commit crimes because they think they have a good reason. It's human nature. Even if I was right to get the terrorists out of the Capitol, I do not claim to be a saint. I've done as many wrong things as anyone. I get drunk, I fight, I… I… " He stopped. Like the priest's carpet, all his sins seemed rather trivial. "I've killed people. I've probably killed more people than anyone else in here…"

"It's no good telling me all this," Ayej interrupted with sudden realism. "I'm not the one proposing to put your blood on my door." He jumped up and dusted off the seat of his overalls. "I'll see you around."

Chekov frowned at the man's back. After a moment, he knelt down and began separating the layers of writing paper and envelope. He'd just sorted out the letter itself, and put the edge pieces in a single pile, when a guard came over. "On your feet!"

"Yes, sir." Chekov began to scoop the letter up, only to be taken by the arm and hauled upright.

"Leave it! You're on work detail. We're waiting." The man's boot scattered the little fragments of Sulu's letter over the floor.

***

Chekov's bad temper welled up again when he saw Bruno determinedly threading through the small crowd of men awaiting work assignments. He stepped forward, catching a guard's eye, and was selected for a four man laundry detail before his protector even got close to him.

A bitter odour rose from the canvas bins of uniforms as Chekov transferred them into the laundry chute. He'd been thinking, and wanted to go on thinking, that clothing unambiguously labeled five seven two four would be exclusively his, but he realised as he handled dozens of sweat-stiffened shirts that the numbers stencilled onto the back of each were smudged. Clearly they washed out and were stamped anew when the uniforms were reissued. Singlets and shorts were unlabelled anyway. He shovelled them as quickly as he could into the gaping mouth of the chute. Down in the darkness, a conveyor belt rumbled, carrying them off to a laundry somewhere. Would there be a way out down there? Unlikely.

"I saw you the other day, talkin' to your wife…"

Chekov looked across at the prisoner he'd been paired with to clear the laundry bins. The man was almost as big as the Bear. He had skin as dark as Uhura's but marred by a freckling of paler, puckered scars. His wiry hair was cropped almost to his skull, unevenly, as if someone had attempted to give a shaved appearance using blunt scissors. The skin of his scalp was nicked here and there.

"Your wife," the man sneered again. He straightened up and folded his arms in front of him.

Chekov continued to work. Sometimes, a fictional wife was an advantage, other times not. He wasn't sure which sort of time this was going to be.

"Why'd she marry someone like you?"

A very good question, Chekov silently conceded. Had his friends really felt that strongly the need to maintain contact? He'd been aware all along that he'd been unjustifiably rude to the lieutenant, but he suddenly felt guilty about it now. There was going to be, at the least, some administrative inconvenience for Uhura in being married to him, and getting unmarried again. Of course, she could collect his pay while he was in here. That idea hadn't occurred to him before. Or would Starfleet stop paying him? Of course they would. He'd been properly convicted according to the local laws.

"I as't you why'd she marry someone like you."

"I don't know."

"When a black woman like that marries a white man, it's 'cause she ain't a proper woman. She don' know how to please a real man, so she run off and find some white trash will let her play around, give her more money than's good for her. If I was her man, I'd show her how to behave."

Chekov dropped the last armful of soiled grey underwear into the chute. "I'm sure you would."

"Now you inside here, she'll be finding hersel' some other white man to cruise off."

"Perhaps," Chekov said neutrally, but he could feel himself getting angry despite himself. Of course, the man was only doing this to provoke a fight, out of boredom.

"A black woman go off with a white man, she not good enough to lick my shoes. No black man respects himself would take her now."

"Well, that is her problem."

"No, that your problem, man."

Chekov frowned. The other two prisoners from the detail were watching, clearly curious to see whether the one sided argument was going to turn into anything more interesting. One of them grinned nastily at Chekov. "His wife, she told him yesterday she leavin' him for a white guy." Both spectators were black.

"I'm sorry." And then he remembered reading an account, written from the disintegrating tail end of the Soviet Union by a young, unemployed ex-soldier, of watching a pretty Russian girl selling herself to an American businessman. It wasn't just about race. The prisoner's grievance had all the weight of economic and social collapse behind it. On Demos, the burden of that collapse was enough to bring a whole planet to its knees.

Chekov checked the last bin was emptied and began turning it. The prisoner caught at the other end of it and rammed it into the ensign, so that he lost his footing and staggered against another bin behind him. That one rolled away and as he caught at its edge to try to steady himself, the three men were on top of him, bearing him down to the floor.

He'd learned how to deal with one heavier, faster fighter, how to slip through the fingers of two men and run. No one had ever wasted time teaching him that a smaller than average man could fight off three determined attackers in a confined space.

He started to yell and someone's foot smashed into his mouth. The next kick was aimed surgically between his legs. After that, it hurt so much his brain could only translate the sensation as white, nauseating light.

"You okay?"

Chekov forced his eyes open and ducked his head away before he realised the milk chocolate face leaning over him belonged to Bruno. Behind the giant a guard looked on, bored and irritable.

"Get him out of here. Take him up to your cell."

"C'n you walk?" Bruno asked, soft as a mother.

"Yes," Chekov confirmed, in defiance of common sense and everything his body was telling him.

"C'mon then." Bruno dragged him upright.

"Nooo!"

The Bear froze as Chekov tried to hold still all the muscles that had failed to tell him how bruised they were until he'd asked them to move.

"Give me a moment… just a moment."

"I'll look after you," Bruno whispered. "I'll look after you. You'll be okay. We jus' got t'get you back to the cell, okay. C'n you get up now? I'll carry you."

"Okay," Chekov agreed. He knew now that moving was going to be torture, but delaying didn't seem to offer any advantage.

Bruno lifted him and he fainted.

***

Chekov fought not to come round, but in the end, he had to admit he was conscious. At first he couldn't work out why the pain was coming in sharp surges but eventually he tied the rhythm in with his pulse and realised the crescendos of agony were self inflicted. It was his fault for being alive. Bruno turned from the tap by the door. He was wringing out a strip of sheet. "It's cold," he explained and packed it over Chekov's groin. The ensign realised groggily that someone had undressed him and laid him out on his bunk. "You shoul've waited for me."

"Yes," Chekov agreed listlessly.

"Why'd they pick on you?"

"Because I'm white, I think."

Bruno nodded. "Yeah. Some black no hopes, they think ever'thin's the white man's fault."

"But Bruno…"

"Just someone to blame, tha's all. White man find himsel' at the bottom of the heap, he can point to a black man's lower. Black man at the bottom of the heap, he can say i's all the white man's fault. Now, black woman at the bottom of the heap… she make hersel' reel pretty, 'n' find a white man. S'that what your wife did?"

"No." Chekov didn't even want to think about Uhura.

Bruno came back with another freshly dipped pad of fabric and Chekov drew in a sharp breath at his clumsiness in changing it over.

"Sorry."

"Leave me alone. I don't want your help. I don't want anyone's help. I wish you'd all go away." The ensign screwed his eyes shut so as not to see Bruno's hurt expression. "You are only making it worse. Can't you see that?"

"Doin' my best."

"Get out of here!"

When Chekov opened his eyes, after two or three minutes of silence, the Bear was still standing looking at him, glowering. "You don't wan' me to help you anymore, you just say," Bruno said. "If you'd waited f'me, those men woul'n't've done this t'you. You lucky I got there so fast. They'd hardly started in on you when I…"

"Bruno, I'd like to go to sleep, please. Please, go away."

"Can'."

"What?"

"Guard locked the door. Everyone's eatin' now. Said he'd send a doctor down here t'look at you."

Chekov sighed. He'd slipped into the work line ahead of Bruno because the man was driving him crazy. Now he was trapped with him for the next eight hours, while the promised doctor would probably never arrive.

He shut his eyes again, and pretended to sleep, while the Bear's stomach complained loudly at missing lunch. Apart from that, there was no creak of bedsprings, or sound of pacing. Presumably, Bruno was just standing there, like an Easter Island statue, only uglier.

***

"Looking glum."

Chekov kept his attention on the shelf full of dog-eared books. As the priest had pointed out, moving to a new block had given them four or five shelves of 'new' books to borrow. Leader picked a tattered thriller out of the ensign's hand and flicked through it. "Any sex in here?"

"I don't know."

"Here we are." Leader spread the book to reveal the ragged margins of the missing pages. "There was, but now there isn't."

Chekov reached for a chunky senior school mathematics textbook.

"A metaphor for your life, don't you think? There were so many things, love, friendship, freedom. And now there aren't. Are you ready to talk about getting out of here yet?"

"How?" Chekov demanded dismissively. "There are transporter interference grids, dozens of locked doors, solid concrete walls, cameras, guards…"

"Yes," Leader said with satisfaction. "But when I first mentioned the idea, you'd have stayed put if the security system had consisted of a chalk line on the floor and a rule that you couldn't cross it. Now you're beginning to think like the rest of us."

"I am?"

"Oh, yes. Certainly. And since thanks to you my plan is stalled at present…"

"How could I..?"

"The trade embargo means a lack of general commercial traffic through the ports. Light traffic means supervision is easier and unexpected movements get picked up. All that adds up to needing a better pilot than the one I'd arranged. Even a better pilot with friends who could drop a smoke screen."

Chekov could instantly see how it could be done, with Uhura's help, or Mister Scott's. But whether they would…

"The Enterprise is leaving, if she hasn't already gone."

"I don't believe there isn't another Starfleet ship in orbit. So, could it be done?"

"Technically, yes. Your ship could broadcast a jamming signal and a larger, better equipped ship could amplify it, probably without anyone realising they were helping. That would confuse pursuers, or perhaps prevent your ship being registered at all. But they would not agree to do it, even if I could communicate with them to ask them."

"You know, I had you down as a likeable kind of person. Don't you have any friends?"

"I would be asking them to break the law."

"Yes, you would. I didn't realise that was going to be such a problem. Hell, Chekov, if you refuse to help me with this, these friends of yours should realise I'd have to spend the next forty years of our lives making you pay for that."

Chekov stared at the floor for a moment. It was all too easy to believe that was true. "Starfleet policy…" he began, not looking up.

"Yes. Which you ignored for the sake of some hostages you'd never even met before…"

"And look what happened to me! You think anyone else will make that mistake?"

"It hurts, doesn't it?"

Now, Chekov did look at Leader. The man's expression was sympathetic.

"Look, I'm not comparing my situation to yours, but I do know what it feels like to discover your friends aren't willing, or able, to stick by you. I think it's time you stopped worrying about Starfleet and took care of yourself, Chekov. Don't you?"

Chekov broke eye contact. It was possible. And merely acknowledging the fact that it was possible sent his heart leaping treacherously. "Depending on the equipment your ship had, and how much time was available…"

"What could you do?" Leader demanded.

The ensign was getting close to giving away classified information. He hesitated, but not as long as he knew he should. "…And if I knew there was a Starfleet ship in orbit, with defense mechanisms that I could trigger. If the Enterprise, for example, was reading an all out attack on this system, they'd relay that to local defense forces automatically. By the time everyone realised it was a false alarm, a small ship could be in the asteroid belt. And then, if you perhaps arranged for another ship to pick you up using transporters… if it all happened quickly enough, before the authorities knew they were looking for escaped prisoners… It would be better if you could give me the locations of local defense tracking stations…"

"It's a shame I'm not considering moving into smuggling." Leader picked a cookery book off the shelf to maintain the pretense that he was simply making use of his library time.

"How long would it be before the escape was reported? If everyone was immediately alerted, it might not work…

"We'd cause enough confusion that they wouldn't realise an escape was part of it for long enough, and they wouldn't know who had escaped even then."

"How?"

"Chekov, are you in on this? I'm not telling you any more until I know you're committed."

"How sure are you that your plan will work?"

"With you involved… certain enough to try it. What more can I say? Being in here skews your judgement, I admit."

"Is it even likely that anyone will get hurt? Do you actually intend to kill anyone?"

Leader frowned and put his book down. "No. I'm not on a revenge kick here. I just want to get out. Having said that, once we're under way, I'll do what's necessary to carry this off, but I'm not a killer for fun. How old are you?"

"Twenty three. Why?"

"You could spend three times that long in here. I reckon in a year everyone but your family will have forgotten you, and by then even they'll prefer to pretend you never existed. You have nothing to look forward to, nowhere to go… Think! You're a doer. Some people never do anything with their whole lives that wouldn't fit into a prison cell with room to spare, but you aren't one of them. You'll go mad."

"I'm not prepared to…"

"Think about it, Chekov. But don't take too long."

***

They filed into the mess hall. The serving hatches were closed and the tables were filthy. Obviously the prisoners weren't about to be fed, even though their next meal was already overdue. Chekov tried not to notice the stains, cup rings and accumulations of sticky fluff, but Starfleet had ingrained a self interested obsessiveness with cleanliness in him. Not only was dirt unpleasant, but sooner or later someone would blame him for it.

"I guess you're used to this sort of thing," Leader said.

The ensign frowned.

"Communal lowest common denominator chow. Gods. A month ago I was eating in the best restaurants on this planet. They were fighting to have me."

"Not clean enough for you, Mister Leader?" a guard asked. Chekov stopped. He recognised the voice instantly, one of the few non-Demosian accents in here. He didn't turn to look at the speaker, hoping against hope that he was mistaken, or if he wasn't, that he hadn't been noticed.

"Well," Leader replied. "Now you come to mention it…"

"You can stop when you can see your reflection in the floor." Across the room, earlier arrivals were taking reluctant charge of cleaning materials.

"I didn't come in here to work," Leader announced. "I'm expecting lunch."

"Then you don't eat, Leader. No one eats until this place is cleaned up, and anyone who doesn't work, doesn't eat at all. Hunger strikers… I hate 'em, but I guess it's just their inalienable right…" A titter went round the guards in the room.

Leader folded his arms. The guard turned to Chekov and smiled. "Set him a good example, twenty four."

Chekov didn't acknowledge the instruction, but he did move towards the buckets and mops, not wanting to give the man any reason to focus on him. The guard followed. The prisoner who was handing mops out extended one towards the ensign.

"You don't need that."

Chekov looked at the guard for the first time. "Then what am I to…"

"I've something else in mind for you," the man told him.

Chekov could see the Bear looking at him from across the room, his face creased with concern. Leader was grinning. Obviously the more Chekov suffered, the more quickly Leader expected to gain his cooperation.

"Yes, you're wasted on clean up. I've a better idea." The guard was playing to his audience, which suddenly included every man in the room. He looked round and met every eye. "Don't I?"

Chekov stayed stubbornly silent.

"Don't know what I mean, twenty four? I think you do, really. I think you can guess. These people are kind of… wary of anything of that sort, but… You and me, prisoner, we're men of the… men of the galaxy, wouldn't you say? We've been around. Seen things… doing things… to each other." The guard laughed. A few of the spectators joined in after a moment. "We know there isn't any harm in it. So what do you say?"

"No."

"I don't think you're allowed to say no, twenty four. You have lost your liberty. Let's go and find us somewhere private."

The Bear suddenly roared and charged out of line towards Chekov, only to crumple when a guard turned a phaser stun on him. He fell awkwardly, overturning a table. The nearest prisoners moved away, leaving him there. He moaned, as if the stun had been too weak for his bulk.

"Well, now your boyfriend there can't see, so you don't have to pretend you're not willing any more."

"No."

The guard grinned. "You'd better wash up first." He picked up a bucket of water and held it out. Chekov stepped forward, took it and threw its contents in the man's face, calculating the appropriate fifty percent extension of his sentence simultaneously.

Suddenly, the face was as deadly as it was wet. "Stand back!" the guard snapped. He fisted his hands and looked over them at Chekov. There was a scraping of furniture as people manouvred to make an impromptu boxing ring for them.

The guard's stance wasn't very scientific. He'd probably had minimal self defense training, backed up by a good deal of muscle. Chekov imagined that his opponent lifted weights… in a solitary apartment decorated with photographs of women in degrading poses.

The ensign could certainly kill him. He could visualise the faces of the men who'd attacked him yesterday and get that out of his system too.

The trouble was, he hadn't yet reached the moral depths where could became will. Chekov's indecision was written plainly on his face.

"Look, if you don't want a fight, prisoner, just say you're sorry."

Chekov considered that too. "No."

The guard grimaced, like a prize fighter winding up his audience. He took an overlong stride to confront the ensign and it was child's play to punch straight through his showy defense, knock him off balance and lay him out on the floor.

A howl of pleasure went up from the prisoners but the guards saw things differently. Half dozen of them seemed to take a personal delight in pulling Chekov down. When the assault slackened off and he opened his eyes again, he was staring into the bloodied face of the original bully.

"Take him through there."

They dragged him through the swing doors into the room where the food was dished up.

"Put him over that."

The central, plastic topped table was as filthy as anything in the mess hall. Chekov's face was pushed down into a congealed dribble of days old gravy. Someone pulled his arms taut and held him by the wrists. He tried to kick, but his ankles were being quickly and efficiently secured to the table's legs. The edge of the table was cutting into his diaphragm. All around, there were expectant, curious, almost frightened faces.

"Com'on!" someone urged. "There'll be a friggin' riot any minute."

"You can go," the familiar voice of Chekov's tormentor announced.

"And what if he…"

"Gets a jump on me again?" the voice demanded, thick with malice. "He won't."

Hands forced skewers through the cuffs of Chekov's overalls, twisted them and finally jammed them into the tabletop, like pinning a butterfly into a case.

There was a final flurry of encouraging remarks as the guards vanished through the doors. Chekov heard them slam shut, and then there was silence.

Chekov stayed calm but angry, angry enough to give him the burst of energy that would let him break free. His attacker walked into view. He'd armed himself with a carving knife.

"I should have killed you when I could," Chekov said coldly.

The man looked from Chekov to the knife and back again as if surprised to find himself armed. He grinned and put it down where Chekov hadn't a hope of reaching it.

"Don't want anyone to get hurt."

"All right. You have made your point. You are in charge and…"

"No. I wanted them all to know that you could knock me down. Also that it took six guards to drag you in here. My next point is that even after I… do whatever I do next, you're still going to walk out of here like a hero. Right?" The guard paused to mop up the trickle of blood that was still running from his nose. He wiped his hand on his pants leg. "Right?"

Chekov dragged experimentally at the skewers and was rewarded by the sound of half a dozen stitches giving way around the shoulders of his overalls.

The guard put a hand on the back of his neck, as if to stop him doing anything more effective. "Three days ago, I was a UFP undercover agent, following up leads on a rather large quantity of stolen property. And I mean large. It's not often the Federation loses track of an entire planet. But that's another story. Then I get a transfer. Suddenly the most important job in the galaxy, that I am uniquely and undeservedly in position to perform, is nursemaiding one Starfleet ensign. And since even I can't be on duty twenty four hours a day, I thought our best chance of keeping you in one piece was to let everyone know you could look after yourself." He scowled. "Just on the unlikely chance that you might get out of here in my lifetime, I thought I'd preserve my cover. I'd like to go back to doing something worthwhile eventually. Although with Jim Kirk breathing down their necks, the home office could keep me here until I'm ready to collect my pension."

"Captain Kirk?"

The man pulled the improvised staples out of the table. He walked round to the other side. "Don't kick me. I'm just letting you loose."

Chekov pulled himself upright. His knees wouldn't seem to lock. "You're supposed to be helping me?"

"That's right."

"Are you… are you from Starfleet?"

"I was." He nodded. "Did five years in enforcement, then transferred my commission to the Federation Justice Department. Got tired of booking ensigns who'd overstayed their late passes. And look what I've got me now. One more lippy ensign to keep out of trouble. I swear to God you're the last one."

"What is your name?"

"Slater. Leastways at the moment. You don't need to know anything else." Slater pulled a length of paper towelling from a dispenser and handed it to Chekov. "Wipe that shit off your face."

Chekov did his best to clean up without taking his eyes off his supposed new ally.

"What happened to the people who were in this block before we arrived?"

Slater narrowed his eyes. "What do you think?"

"Uh… Someone suggested they were…" He looked down at the remnants of their last meal. "Killed."

"God. I thought you were going to say cooked for a moment there."

"Like the men in PI?"

"Well they weren't cooked, poor buggers."

"Do you know how much heat concrete generates as it sets? Those who weren't smothered would have cooked, yes."

"Look, Ensign, I don't need you to tell me what sort of place this is. Or that PI wasn't full of men who should have been in hospital, or sheltered hostels, or whatever."

"So where are the men from this block?"

"They were working when the walls collapsed. Most of them were killed — cooked, if you want to be unpleasantly honest. There were a few survivors. They've been dispersed to other blocks. Look, if they were holding mass executions, there'd be no need to round the clock."

"Round the clock… you mean three shifts for all the accommodation?"

"Yes. The whole place is on three shifts now. Likely to stay that way too, thanks to you."

"Me?"

"A lot of places are getting reluctant to trade with this world all of a sudden. Particularly suppliers of construction materials that could go into building prisons. Hence the need to use good old fashioned concrete, which it turns out no one here remembers how to handle safely."

Chekov swallowed. "Could the… the accident have been deliberate?"

Slater shook his head. "No. There were civilians and guards killed. I think that would have been avoided, or at least minimised."

"Shouldn't you… Why aren't you doing something?"

"How d'you mean?"

"About this place? Why are you worrying about tracking down stolen property when…"

"Not my department."

"You mean it is someone's department then?"

"Well…" Slater frowned. "Don't you know?"

"Know what?"

"Oh, come on. Don't you think they could have found an excuse to let you off? Or asked the Enterprise to leave quickly before they realised they ought to arrest you? You think they want you drawing attention to their sordid penal policy? They're supposed to want some news service getting hold of your letters and…"

"I don't…"

"The Federation can't interfere, by its own rules. No one else wanted to interfere, or even wanted to know. They had to get someone high profile in here. You see?"

"Starfleet set me up…"

"Hell, no. They wouldn't have the imagination. But it could have been the local opposition. They were probably hoping to pick up some photogenic tourist who was stupid enough to buy some drugs. But you, you're perfect. You haven't even done anything wrong, you're a ready made hero, whiter than white. All those teenage girls can stick your picture up on their bedroom wall and fantasise about the hell you're going through in here." Slater smiled. "Here, hang on a moment."

He pulled something out of his pants pocket. It was a pack of candy, fruit flavoured. He held it out to the ensign, working one square loose with his thumb. "Eat up."

"Why?"

"Why? Because I don't want you fainting on me."

Chekov slipped the candy into his mouth and crunched it. Slater grimaced. "God, I hate people who do that." He leaned over and put the knife back in a locking rack. "Finished it? Go on then, out you go. And remember. Head up, and the first time I turn my back on you, I'm dead. Okay? Make everyone believe my days are numbered…"

"They might be," Chekov said.

Slater grinned appreciatively, then realised Chekov was serious. "Why?"

"The prisoner who was stunned, he… we had an agreement he'd look out for me."

"You idiot." After a moment of exasperated consideration, Slater grinned again. "Well, maybe not. The Bear's a dumb nigger, and that story about him killing a guard is all his own invention, but so long as you're the only one who knows that…" He twisted his fist unexpectedly into Chekov's collar and pushed the ensign through the swing doors. Cleaning was still in progress in the dining hall. Everyone stopped and looked.

Slater thrust Chekov forward so that he stumbled into a table, barely keeping upright.

Knowing his limitations as an actor, Chekov took his time over turning to face the crowd. He fixed his eyes on one of the guards who'd dragged him into the kitchen and let the hatred boil for a moment, then redirected his attention to Slater.

"I'm going to kill you."

"The fuck you are," Slater responded, all bullying bravado. His eyes were worried though, like a cat taunting a big dog from the safety of a tree. "Get back to work."

Chekov found himself standing next to the Bear. The big man looked sick. He was squinting at the lights.

"Did he..?" he asked Chekov, loud enough for everyone to look towards them.

"Mind your own business." Chekov snapped. "Leave it."

"He's dead," Bruno reassured his protégé, still at full volume.

"Bruno, don't. I don't want you to…"

"Why not?" the Bear demanded. "Why shoul'n't I kill him?"

Why indeed? Was Chekov's own chosen protector going to end up killing the very man that Kirk had sent to perform that role? And then face the death penalty for doing it?

"You don't have to. I will kill him. Leave him for me. Okay?" Chekov watched the Bear's reaction carefully. The big man nodded, smiling through the pounding afterstun headache that Chekov knew all too well. One of the other prisoners punched the ensign lightly on the shoulder. "Yeah."

"You do that!"

"Kill the fuckin' bastard."

***

Over the following days, the new wing settled down to something like a routine. The triple shifts worked after a fashion. Approximately seven hours sleep, a mad rush to gather bedding and belongings, shower, exercise, breakfast, cleaning corridors and other common areas, midday meal — for Chekov's shift at any rate. He supposed he should be grateful to be in the third that conformed more or less to the daylight that sneaked in through the skylights above the echoing stairwells, but long months on the Enterprise had left him dislocated from nature.

Leader, true to his name and intentions, was gradually re-establishing himself as top man in the block, and as for the rest, Slater's stratagem seemed to have paid off.

Chekov felt as if he was surrounded by a force field. No one seemed to want to get too close. He wasn't picked out and harassed by either prisoners or guards. Bruno had fussed for a few hours, wanting Chekov to request a visit to the infirmary, but he'd eventually given up in the face of Chekov's assurances that he wasn't hurt, just mad.

More letters arrived, copies with broad white spaces where something controversial had been erased. His parents seemed to have been struck dumb with despair even before the censor wielded the scissors. An hour of 'education' gave an opportunity for writing replies. There were cheap paper books scattered on the tables of the room and the supervisor had unfurled a poster that laid out the basics of letter writing, as if his students were eight year olds. Chekov ended the session as he started it, staring at sheets of blank paper. He'd set out with the firm intention of writing to Sulu, apologising for not knowing what he was replying to, and then to his parents. But what could he say?

"Can I keep the paper, and a pen?" he asked the unsmiling supervisor, when the man began collecting equipment at the end of the afternoon from the prisoners lining up by the door.

"What are you going to do with it?"

"I couldn't decide what to say…"

"I'll help you next time," the man suggested. He took hold of the paper and pulled it out of Chekov's hands. "You should've said you had problems." He collected the pen too.

The ensign relinquished his hold on the pen too, with a despairing sigh. He'd work out what he was going to write and next time — when was next time? — he'd just get on with it.

Outside, the hall was full of guards. They were all standing, some with stun guns in hand, watching the doorway from which the prisoners were emerging one by one. The man in front of Chekov froze in surprise at the intimidating scene.

"Move aside, ninety two."

The prisoner scuttled left, panicked when he realised the prisoner ahead of him was disappearing to the right and made a frantic dash to catch up with his fellows.

"Stop right there."

Chekov froze in turn.

"Raise your hands and stand with your legs apart."

The ensign located the man who was giving the orders. He wasn't a guard at all, but wearing the black Demosian police uniform. Half a dozen similarly clad men were clustered around him. When Chekov obeyed, two of them strode forward and quickly searched him. As they finished, they pulled his hands together behind his back and clamped restraints round them.

Two minutes later he was standing in an empty room, still manacled. Two prison guards flanked him and he was facing the outsider and two of his men.

"You know why you're here?"

"No… sir."

"My department is investigating a serious crime. Regulations require that all incidents involving death or life threatening injury to staff or inmates are the subject of an external investigation. The same regulations stipulate that inmates must cooperate fully with such investigations or be subject to fifty percent penalties. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, sir." Chekov's head was spinning. Someone must have reported Slater's assault on him. And as a result, they manacled and interrogated the victim?

"I am obliged to give you the following warning. Failure to answer questions, inconsistency in your answers and attempts to mislead the investigating team will all be interpreted as evidence of guilt and may in themselves be offences punishable by fifty percent penalties. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, sir." Guilt? Of what? Being tied down across a table and…?

"Three days ago, you threatened to kill Prison Officer Stephen Slater. Do you admit that?"

Chekov's mouth was totally dry but he still tried to swallow.

"I said… I did say that I would try to kill him but…"

"You then told another prisoner not to harm Slater, but to leave him to you. Is that true?"

"Only in order to…"

"True, prisoner, or not true?"

"True."

"Tell me what you did this morning, from the moment you first woke."

"I… dressed, washed. I was ordered to remain in my cell and clean it while the other… the others went to breakfast. Then I went down to breakfast. I ate. I spent an hour in the exercise yard with everyone else. Then we were split up into groups of about six…"

"How many were in your group?"

"Six. Including myself."

"Names?"

Chekov shook his head. "I don't know."

The officer slid handed Chekov a sheaf of badly reproduced identity shots. He peered at the grainy pictures. "Yes. I think… As far as I can tell."

"And?"

"We were ordered to clean the floors on landing six. That is what I did."

"Were you supervised?"

"No."

"Did you work alone or with others from your group?"

"Alone."

"Did you leave the landing at any point?"

"Yes, to fetch clean water…"

"Where did you go to do that?"

"To the standpipe by the cleaning store on landing four."

"At what time?"

"I don't know."

"Was anyone there, on landing four? Would anyone have seen you?"

Chekov paused to think. "No. I do not remember seeing anyone there. It was very quiet."

It had been blessedly peaceful. He'd been enjoying himself, he realised now.

"Did you see Prison Officer Slater at any time this morning?"

"Yes, sir. He was on duty at breakfast."

"That was the last time you saw him?"

"Yes, sir."

"You didn't see him on landing four when you were collecting water from the standpipe by the cleaning store?"

"No, sir."

"What equipment were you using?"

"A bucket and a mop, sir."

"You're a trained Starfleet officer, are you not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did your training include unarmed combat?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you consider yourself capable of killing a man with your bare hands?"

"Is he dead?"

"Please answer my question."

"If you would tell me…"

"Just answer the question."

Chekov shook his head with what he hoped was calm conviction. "No."

"No? I'm not sure I believe that."

"I do not consider myself capable of killing Prison Officer Slater with my bare hands in cold blood, if that's what you are accusing me of."

"But you have the ability - technically. Do you deny that?"

"I don't know…" Chekov told himself that for the moment, these people were only ascertaining the facts. If the facts were unfavourable to him, Starfleet would make Slater's true identity known. "No. I don't deny it."

"And you had the opportunity. You were alone on landing four at some time this morning. Prison Officer Slater's body was found in the cleaning store early this afternoon. Add to that the fact that you were heard to make threats against Slater, not once but twice…"

"I didn't mean them. I wanted to…"

"And no one is suggesting that you did it in cold blood. Are they?"

"I did not kill Slater. I did not go into the cleaning store. The door was open but I had no reason to go in there."

"You don't deny that you threatened to kill him, and that you had a reason to kill him?"

"I don't deny that I threatened to kill him."

"Why?"

"Because…"

"Because he assaulted you."

"No."

"I have fourteen prisoners and seven Prison Officers who all report that you hit Slater and knocked him down. And that he then set out to deliberately humiliate you. Are you denying that?"

Chekov took a very deep breath. "Slater did not set out to humiliate me. He was trying to help me. He was giving me an opportunity to show that I could defend myself, and that I couldn't be intimidated by… by threats.

"What? Was Slater some sort of social worker?"

The guards, who presumably had known Slater, or at least his Demosian incarnation, guffawed.

"Search him again. Then escort him to his cell."

"I didn't kill him. I had no reason to kill him…"

The officer stepped forward to within a few inches of Chekov. "No reason?"

"No."

"Well, I have seven long serving, law abiding prison officers who say he was giving you a hard time, and fourteen inmates of this prison who are prepared to be a little more specific about exactly what sort of a hard time they mean. Are they all lying?"

"He didn't… do what he told them he was going to do."

"Really? Why not?"

"I told you, he…"

"And I don't believe you. And I don't think you'll find anyone else will."

***

At that moment, Kirk was wondering why the Demosian authorities had unbent so far as to grant him an interview, only to leave him kicking his heels in an anteroom. Then the President emerged from his office with a thin, harassed looking individual in tow.

He took Kirk's hand and shook it vigorously. "Bad news, I'm afraid. This is the Governor of Prison Facility Four Alpha."

Kirk frowned. The Governor had a look about him that Kirk instantly associated with an underling being required to carry the can for something more or less catastrophic.

"What?"

"My cabinet were in the process of, as we suggested, considering a special pardon for Ensign Chekov, when we received some disturbing news. Governor?"

"Mister President?"

"Would you care to repeat to Captain Kirk what you've just told me, Governor?"

"Oh, yes." The man, thin and grey, with a sharp hatchet shaped nose and a host of nervous mannerisms, nodded a few times. "Of course."

"Well get on with it." The President glanced accusingly at the clock. "Look, you don't need me. The situation's very clear. Very clear indeed." With that, the President strode back in to his office and let the door close behind him. The Governor looked round the imposing chamber. "Not really the place I'd choose to discuss… still. Chekov… model prisoner… until this morning. Yes, this morning. Noon at latest anyway."

"What happened then?"

"He.. uh, it seems he may have… well, more realistic to say we can't really see how he didn't…"

"What?" Kirk had visions of hunger strikes, works to rule; at worst, another fight with a prisoner, like the one that had already landed him with an extra fifteen years to serve. If Chekov hadn't remembered to pull his punches, he might even have hurt someone. It must be that, if the Demosians thought it important enough to inform him so swiftly.

"Killed one of my guards."

"What?"

"Embarrassing," the Governor conceded.

Kirk swallowed slowly and deliberately, as a cooling off device. "In what circumstances, exactly?"

"It seems that… couple of days ago, this guard for some reason took a dislike to Chekov. Picked on him, you might say. There were witnesses. Rather large number of witnesses. Ended with Chekov threatening to kill the guard and… today, he did."

"I don't believe it."

"Well," the Governor admitted, "in the circumstances, would have killed him myself probably."

"Look, it's not something I like to admit about Starfleet, but one lesson it makes sure all its officers learn is how to put up with a little name calling and bullying."

"Rather more than bullying," the Governor corrected. "Seems the guard may have… unusually! Not of the opinion that this sort of thing is endemic in our penal establishments. May have… uh, committed an indecent assault."

Kirk narrowed his eyes as the Governor coloured faintly.

"Chekov was raped?"

"Apparently."

"Two days ago? In front of witnesses?"

"Um, so it seems."

"I thought he'd been placed in protective isolation to prevent anything like that happening."

"Shortage of accommodation. On the waiting list," the Governor jumped in hurriedly.

"You were taking action against the guard in question? Why was he still on duty?"

"No complaint received."

"What? No one mentioned this until after the guard was killed?"

"Bad form I know, but… they stick together. Guards. Understandable."

"I presume there is a mechanism for prisoners to complain, if they're mistreated. One that Chekov would have been aware of? Are you telling me he didn't complain?"

The Governor was virtually cringing. "No complaint recorded."

"Has he had a medical examination?"

The man shrugged.

"I want to see Chekov, with my Chief Medical Officer and a lawyer. Immediately."

"Establishment provides legal advice to prisoners charged with…"

"I'm not worried about that, at the moment. I'm concerned with the fact that he'll be wanting to sue you for maladministration."

"Rules don't permit visitors…"

"Governor, is there a rule that says that you can't interview Chekov in your office?"

"What? Of course not."

"Is there a rule that says you can't receive visitors in your office?"

"Well, no…"

"And is there a specific rule forbidding you to carry out these two perfectly proper activities simultaneously?"

The Governor opened and shut his mouth a few times. "Now?"

"How long will it take you to get back to your office?"

"Half hour."

"I'll see you there in half an hour."

***

When Kirk, with McCoy and Fryer grimly silent at his heels, was shown into the Governor's office, he was greeted by a small posse of prison officials. The Governor did a little nervous dance, introducing his own senior medic and lawyer as if everyone had assembled for a tea party.

"And these are?" Kirk gestured at the three remaining men, one of whom he recognised anyway.

"Jeffer, Minister of Penal Affairs, Captain," the oldest of them announced. "And advisors."

Kirk didn't react. This was what he'd expected, although not what he'd wanted.

"Am I going to be allowed to see Chekov?" he asked, as levelly as he could manage.

"Hold on please, Captain," Jeffer told him. "Everything has been dealt with properly. You'll be given access to all statements and information, as a courtesy, but…"

"That won't do. I demand to see Ensign Chekov."

"Please, Captain, if you'll just hear me out, I'm sure you'll appreciate that, while your outrage is quite justified, and indeed, I have already taken steps to make sure that there will be no repetition of this appalling incident, I will allow you to speak briefly with the prisoner. I want you to be quite clear about what we're proposing to do before you speak to him, however. For his benefit as much as anything."

"Very well."

"Firstly, the evidence against Ensign Chekov is circumstantial but compelling. He was assaulted by Slater. We have witnesses to a fight between the two men, following which Slater told everyone he intended to carry out an indecent assault on the prisoner. There were no witnesses to the assault as such, but the prisoner at no point denied it had taken place, not until after he was told that Slater had been found dead."

"He denies it now though?" Kirk demanded. "Was he examined by a doctor?"

The prison doctor stepped forward. "I examined him this afternoon, Captain. The attack happened nearly three days ago, so naturally, the physical evidence is somewhat inconclusive…"

"What evidence was there?" McCoy broke in.

"Bruising to the wrists and ribs…"

"Wrists and ribs? I thought…"

"Hold it, McCoy." Kirk frowned at his medical officer and realised that Fryer was doing the same. McCoy subsided into unwilling silence. "It has been three days. If Chekov didn't report the assault at the time, for whatever reason, then obviously there will be less evidence. Let's not be unreasonable."

"And you don't want your own people finding evidence that might not be to Chekov's advantage," Jeffer interpreted. "Don't worry. My staff are quite competent. The bruises to the wrists and ribs could have been three days old, consistent with the statements from the witnesses. There was also considerable older bruising to the genital area, making it difficult to determine what happened when the assault by Slater took place."

"The alleged assault by Slater," Fryer interrupted sharply.

Jeffer snapped his head round to scowl at the lieutenant. "If the prisoner had reported the incident at the time, they would have had no trouble establishing that an assault had taken place, and identifying the assailant. But Chekov chose not to report it. Instead, he threatened to kill Slater, in front of witnesses. He even went so far as to instruct another prisoner to 'leave Slater to me.' He didn't want Slater disciplined, he wanted to kill him. Two days later, he had the opportunity and took it."

"The opportunity?" Kirk objected. "After he'd — allegedly — threatened to kill the man, no one was taking any special precautions?"

Jeffer held out both hands in a calming gesture. "Captain Kirk, if you'll call the dogs off, I'm just trying to tell you what happened. No one's under oath at this point. Slater chose not to take the incident seriously. Perhaps because to have asked to be moved, or to work with another guard, would have been to admit what had happened. The prison service doesn't condone this kind of incident. Will you let me finish?"

"Go ahead."

"Thank you. Yesterday, Chekov was one of six prisoners on cleaning detail, washing floors and stairs on that block. He was not supervised. We're short staffed and overcrowded, as you are well aware. He was not regarded as a troublemaker. He had access to a small area on three levels, including a cleaning store where Slater's body was found two hours later. Slater was rendered unconscious by a blow to the base of the skull. Death was caused by pressure on the carotid artery, effectively cutting off the blood supply to the brain. I'm sure you can tell us whether or not Chekov would have been capable of either of those actions."

"Did anyone else have access to the area?" Kirk asked, ignoring the question of whether Chekov knew how to do what he was accused of, or possessed the strength. Since he knew all about Slater, he knew damn well Chekov couldn't have killed him, not without a good deal of disturbance and a heap of good luck. But then he also knew, or thought he knew, that Chekov wouldn't have tried to kill Slater even if the man had been the bully he'd pretended to be.

"The other five prisoners, one other guard who was on duty there, and a small number of senior staff who would have had keys and therefore in theory had access to all areas of the prison. Those who were known to be in the area can provide partial alibis for one another. None of them, so far as we can tell, had any particular connection with Stephen Slater."

"And that's it?" Kirk demanded.

"That's the preliminary case against the prisoner. Of course, you'll be kept apprised of any evidence, either way, that we turn up. I dare say your Medical Officer would like to take a look at our doctor's records."

Kirk could see that Jeffer was trying to get him alone. He nodded to McCoy. "Take Fryer with you."

McCoy seemed in two minds whether to go quietly. He stopped as he passed Kirk on his way to the door. "Jim…"

"I'm sure he's had whatever immediate treatment he needs. Do you really want to end up giving evidence against him?"

"I'm not prepared to even consider that he could have done this, Captain."

"The court won't be asking you what you believe. They'll only care what you see when you examine him. Think about it."

McCoy blinked his anger back under control. "Come on, Fryer," he snapped. "If the law's going to be an ass, I guess we're relying on you."

***

The Governor accompanied Kirk on the short walk down the corridor. "Interview will be recorded," he told the captain calmly. "Chekov knows, so may be less talkative than you expect. Don't misinterpret it. Also… another reason he didn't complain about what happened. A deal. I kept him out of PI on condition he didn't object to anything that happened as a result…"

Kirk frowned. "We wanted him transferred to Protective Isolation in order to stop this happening."

"I'm sure, but PI is… virtually Bedlam. Not a place where I'd feel safe. Can't get medical staff for it. Officers almost as bestial as the prisoners. No."

Kirk sensed the helpless regret of a man who was forced to operate a penal policy that made no sense. He changed the subject. "Tell me, is the evidence against Chekov enough for a successful prosecution? I'm not sure it would be on Earth, and I don't know if the standards of proof required for an internal hearing in the prison…"

"Not an internal hearing," the Governor corrected swiftly. "Full trial, for a capital offence. Sufficient, given that Slater known to be something of a maverick. Evidence for that. Can believe he'd do what he was accused of. Rather more easily than I'd believe Chekov's story Slater was trying to give him a helping hand. I'm sorry."

A door swung open and Kirk found himself admitted to a small, windowless room containing two chairs and a table. All the furniture was fixed to the floor.

"If you'll wait, Captain."

The Governor left him, but the door hardly closed before it opened again. Kirk turned quickly to greet his navigator, only to find himself face to face with Jeffer.

"What's going on?" Kirk demanded angrily.

Jeffer held his hands up to silence the captain's objections. "I just wanted to save you time and false hopes. The evidence against your officer is damning. I don't think any jury in its right mind would hesitate to convict. He only has one defence…"

"Well?" Kirk prompted coolly.

"That Slater was an undercover operative for Federation interests whose agenda is the destabilisation of the Demosian government. It's a defence he's welcome to use. Without cooperation from fairly high up in the UFP bureaucracy, he might have difficulty substantiating it, but I assume that cooperation would be forthcoming. Wouldn't it?"

Kirk started talking smoothly, prepared lies immediately ready. The Demosians weren't supposed to be aware of Slater's true identity, but Kirk was beginning to expect everything involved in this mission to go wrong. "The Federation has, as you know very well, a policy of non-interference with the internal affairs of member worlds. I don't know what makes you think Slater was an agent for anyone…"

"Let's be realistic, Kirk. Needs must… The ends justify the means. You and I both know that rules are broken from time to time. The Demosian government would be deeply disturbed, of course. As would many other worlds who aren't prepared to toe the Federation line on every aspect of policy."

When Kirk didn't respond, the Minister added sanctimoniously, "I don't want to see Chekov facing a lethal injection in three months time if he doesn't deserve it, Kirk."

"Three months?" Kirk turned his anger into outrage at this display of indecent haste.

"When Parliament debated the mechanics of introducing a death penalty, it was felt that having men on some sort of death row for years was unnecessarily cruel. Not to mention expensive. His trial should be over within a couple of months at most, following which sentence must be carried out on the thirtieth day. Think about it, Captain. Now, I'll let you have twenty minutes with Chekov, since you'll need to decide what help Starfleet is going to offer with legal representation. Oh, his family might want to know that if he is found guilty, he'll be allowed three family visits during the thirty days after sentencing. They'll get official notification. Ah, here he is."

Jeffer stood beside the door while two uniformed guards brought the prisoner in. They ordered Chekov sharply to sit down and withdrew to stand a yard or so behind him.

"I'm sure we can trust the captain not to do anything improper," Jeffer suggested pleasantly. "You have thirty minutes, Captain." He gestured at the guards to leave and followed them out.

Kirk put a finger to his lips and pulled a neat, steel grey device off his belt. He placed it on the table and pressed a touchpad on the small control panel.

"Audio scrambler," he informed Chekov as he pulled a chair out and seated himself.

"Lieutenant Uhura told me that the Enterprise had to leave…"

"New orders."

"Then Starfleet…"

"Not exactly. We had some engine trouble. Not much point us rushing into battle on one quarter impulse."

"Oh." Chekov sounded disappointed, then bitter. "I see."

"Pavel, I mean the sort of engine trouble that Mister Scott conjures out of thin air when he doesn't want to do something. And I'm not sure I'd have had a crew if we'd pulled out of orbit without you. But the Magna Carta managed to finish a refit three days early and Command gave in and let her take our place."

This display of practical support didn't seem to cheer the prisoner in the least. "I didn't kill Slater."

"Of course not."

"He said…"

"Go on. We're quite private."

"I have been worried, that he might have been lying. He might not have been working for the Federation at all. And then no one would believe me. I would end up being found guilty and executed just because I could not prove…"

"I asked Starfleet Intelligence what they usually did if one of their people ended up in trouble like this, in a prison they couldn't break him out of. They didn't have an easy answer but they knew Slater was here. They probably know why as well, but they didn't tell me that. They put me in touch with him. Slater was telling you the truth. He was carrying out my orders to help you. That's not the problem…"

"Problem?"

"He shouldn't have been here. The Federation has no jurisdiction in the internal affairs of Demos."

"But he was here. Surely that is what counts…"

"I was assuming — hoping — the Demosian authorities would simply let the charges against you drop once they realised you had a convincing defence. It's embarrassing enough for them that you're here anyway. But their attitude seems to be, they've got us where they want us. Either you're a murderer, and they were quite right to imprison you, and the economic blockade will wind down once public sympathy for you dries up, or the Federation was breaking its own rules and again, they'll get a sympathetic reaction and be back on good terms with their trading partners. The fact that the second alternative might lead to the break up of a big chunk of the Federation doesn't seem to matter to them." Kirk frowned. "But it will tend to be the clinching argument for Command, I'm afraid. Chekov. I only spoke to the Demosian Minister of Penal Affairs a moment before you came in. I haven't had a chance to think through what I'm going to do about this yet." Kirk sighed impatiently. "Frankly, I hadn't even worked out what I was going to do about you being here in the first place."

"I would prefer that you not do anything," Chekov said stonily, the words that he'd carefully rehearsed sounding just that, rehearsed.

"What? Don't be ridiculous. It's only the Demosians who are presenting this as a straight choice between saving you and the future of the Federation. There will be another way out…"

"That is not what I mean, Captain," Chekov said coldly. "You have not thought this through. Even if you can establish my innocence of Slater's death, you cannot obtain my freedom. If I must remain here, I would prefer that it was only for three months."

It took a moment for Kirk to absorb what he was saying. "Don't say that. Don't even think that. You will get out of here…"

"Everything you have done so far has only made my situation worse."

"I couldn't foresee that Slater…"

"I asked Doctor McCoy not to ask that I be placed in Protective Isolation. He ignored me…"

"But Chekov, if you'd been in there…" Kirk tailed off as he remembered the Governor's uncritical endorsement of Chekov's choice in the matter.

"Captain, don't you know what has happened?"

"Know what? For God's sake, Chekov, we only have twenty minutes. What are you talking about?"

"They were constructing additional accommodation above the PI Unit. There was an accident. That is, some people believe it was deliberate, but incompetence and negligence seem more likely causes. The roof of the PI Unit collapsed. The inmates were buried in several thousand tonnes of concrete. Those who were not killed immediately were probably trapped for hours in the setting concrete while the heat it generated slowly cooked them. We could hear their screams, and the screams of the prisoners who were working on the site when it happened…"

Kirk paled. "Chekov, McCoy was responding to your anxiety about… He couldn't have anticipated… "

"I agreed with the Governor that I would not complain about anything that happened to me in here if he would say that there was no room for me in the PI Unit."

"Yes, I know that. Chekov… You heard screams. How else do you know that's what happened? It could just be a rumour."

"I spoke to Slater about it. Also there has been no work for prisoners on the buildings since that night. The neighbouring blocks have been evacuated, also the prison hospital has been moved. It was adjacent to the PI Unit. And there is a shortage of equipment and medicines in the hospital now, as if they cannot afford to replace what was lost." Chekov shrugged. "It is a problem, of course. I imagine the authorities do not want to admit what happened, so they cannot request additional funding. Also they have a large block of concrete in which maybe a thousand bodies are entombed. We worry that they will decide it is an effective way to deal with the problem of overcrowding. At least my high profile will ensure that I am allowed to enjoy all of my three months. If enjoy is the correct term."

Kirk leaned across the table and covered Chekov's right hand momentarily with his own. "Chekov, I will get you out of here. I'm just not quite clear yet on the mechanics. What about… McCoy prescribed some drugs for you…"

"Yes."

"Did that help?"

"Help?" Chekov shook his head. "Not exactly." A small voice inside him insisted McCoy hadn't known, Uhura couldn't have guessed, even Kirk couldn't foresee every trail that lead from his plans. He ignored it. "The side effects are unpleasant."

"You weren't supposed to take the damned stuff…"

"I knew that. Unfortunately the prison medical staff thought otherwise."

"Oh, shit."

"As for Lieutenant Uhura… Or should I call her Lieutenant Chekov now?"

Kirk waved aside whatever he was going to say as irrelevant. "I will get you out of here." He wasn't in the habit of promising his officers anything. That was something they understood, but looking at Chekov, Kirk felt he couldn't offer anything less. "You have my word."

"When?" Chekov asked simply.

"I can't say. Soon enough."

The ensign took a deep breath. "No. I will get myself out of here."

"How, dammit?"

"I can't tell you."

"Chekov, if I'm to do anything, you have to be whiter than white. A botched escape attempt, with maybe guards being killed or injured, is out of the question."

"I wasn't planning to mount an unsuccessful attempt to escape. I can see that would be pointless."

"And where are you when you get out? Escape will look like an admission of guilt. Starfleet can't take you back. No one else you'd want to work for will have you. Almost any world in the Federation will be out of the question. You won't even benefit if there's an eventual relaxation of things here."

"I will be alive, with my dignity."

"There's no dignity in being a fugitive, Pavel."

Chekov shrugged. "That viewpoint probably arises from ignorance of the alternatives."

"Chekov," Kirk started determinedly, "listen to me. I have given you my word that I will obtain your freedom, on acceptable terms. You don't need to do anything stupid."

"I know you want to," the ensign admitted. "But I know that you have no idea how to even start."

"Chekov…"

"Very well. I have your promise. Will you do something for me?"

"Of course. I've told you…"

"When you finally admit that it's a promise you cannot keep, don't just write to my parents. Tell them yourself, that I was not… that the whole thing is a lie from start to finish. And I did not kill Slater."

"They don't need me to tell them that. And it's not going to be necessary if you will only sit tight and let me…"

"No. I can't. You can't tell me that I'm putting the Federation at risk, or other personnel or anyone but myself. If five minutes before I am to be executed, someone offered me a phaser, should I refuse to use it to escape? I didn't kill Slater." Chekov paused for Kirk to raise any objection, but none was forthcoming. "And if five minutes is acceptable, then why not twenty four hours? Or now?"

Kirk got to his feet, scowling. "Then to add to the other obstacles in my path, I'm now running a race with your unknown source of weapons, or files and rope ladders. I hope it concentrates my thinking." He shook his head at Chekov's stubborn expression. "I don't think there'll be any problem with Fryer representing you, if that's acceptable to you. If it's advisable to use an experienced local lawyer…"

"Since I'm not allowed to defend myself, you might as well save the credits."

"Whatever Fryer advises, we will do, of course," Kirk continued as if the ensign hadn't spoken. "Is there anything else you want to talk about while I'm here?"

"No, Captain. There is not."

"Where are they keeping you now?" Kirk asked evenly, refusing to return Chekov's anger.

"Where I was before. I don't think they can afford the luxuries of segregation and solitary confinement, if they ever could. It's very, very overcrowded in here."

"And are you…"

"I can look after myself, Captain. And having a reputation for killing guards is quite helpful. I am sure I shall survive long enough to die in a satisfactory manner."

"Pavel…"

Chekov leaned over, picked up the little scrambler and turned it off. "Thank you, Captain, for coming to see me. I imagine that I shall be obliged to see Lieutenant Fryer, but I would rather not receive any other visits. They only seem to lead to misunderstandings."

"Whatever you say, Chekov," Kirk agreed defeatedly.

***

Fryer's visit took place three days later, in the same interview room. The lieutenant slid his computer onto the plain table and turned it on before saying anything. After a moment he nodded and sat down. "No listening devices. I wasn't sure I could trust them to stick to their own rules. How are you?"

"Brilliant," Chekov told him. "And you?"

"Worried sick…"

"That's reassuring."

Fryer smiled nervously. "I don't mean it like that."

"Then why did you say it?"

"Look, Pavel, can we start again? There's not much point me being here…"

"I know." Chekov reached out and turned the computer so that he could see the screen. "Are there any new games on here?"

"Pav…"

"Well, it is true. There is nothing you can do. I don't want to talk about… what happened. I particularly do not want to talk about what is going to happen." He hit a couple of command keys. "Let's play Torpedo Run."

"I took it off. I haven't had time for games since… Look, the captain said if you snapped my head off I shouldn't pay any attention, but I can't think straight when you're being like this. I… uh, I brought you some chocolate…" Fryer dipped his hand into the computer's case and pulled out one of Chekov's favourite candy bars.

"Stuff your fucking chocolate!"

They both stood and looked at the bar for a moment, then Fryer dropped it back into the case. "Just as well really. I could lose my practising certificate for smuggling candy to convicted felons. You know you really upset Uhura?"

Chekov didn't answer.

"She wasn't angry, but other people were, on her behalf."

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I couldn't help it… I was frightened she'd get into trouble. That was such a stupid idea. It was the sort of stupid thing I do. I didn't even know what to say to her and then…"

"Then?" Fryer repeated.

Chekov shook his head, as if he couldn't believe his own ill fortune. "You'd better tell her I apologise. Okay? But I don't want her to find more excuses and try it again. I don't want to see her. I don't want to see anyone. Don't tell her, but…"

"We thought you'd be pleased to see someone, that was all. What shouldn't I tell her?"

"Most of the evidence they seem to have that I… that Slater… that…"

"Pavel?"

"Okay, it doesn't really matter. I'll be polite. Sit down. Let's get it over with."

Fryer reclaimed the computer apologetically, keeping his eyes on his client as if Chekov might inadvertently spill some vital information while his attention was elsewhere. "First, let's go through the statement you made to the police about the day Slater died and… and the events leading up to that."

"It's all true. I would not have signed it otherwise. I simply omitted some of the things Slater told me…"

"And fabricated the reasons why he chose to help you?"

"He said he'd been in Starfleet. I didn't think it was too unbelievable that he should demonstrate some loyalty to another Starfleet Officer. I mean, you would, or I would. Why shouldn't he? I was very careful not to invent anything. I merely… reassembled the constituent parts of what happened."

"Okay. That's good. I mean… it wasn't good that it happened of course, but…"

"And what's next?" Chekov said, cutting off Fryer's floundering.

"The medical report is inconclusive. McCoy says that's consistent with the scanning equipment they claimed to have used. Of course, proving that something didn't happen is always harder. You said something about an earlier attack…"

"Yes."

"Did they…" Fryer seemed to be physically bracing himself for the answer.

"No."

"I need to know, Pavel."

"Some two metre tall black psychopath, with friends to match, whose wife just told him she was trading him in for a more successful, white version, decided I was a suitable target for his unresolved negative sentiments."

"Because of Lieutenant Uhura?" Chekov nodded. "But that's ridiculous!"

"David, did your training involve any criminal defence work?"

"Sure, defending late pass abuses, a few AWOL… No. I know. This is a whole different world."

"It's certainly not very much like Starfleet. Or Earth. Or humanity as you know it."

Fryer swallowed. "So this… this person assaulted you?"

"Three of them," Chekov reminded the lawyer defiantly. "One I could've handled."

"And they beat you up, but that was all?"

"Two of them held me down and the third kicked me till I passed out. I think they may have been disturbed."

"I don't think their mental state…"

"I mean, if someone else had not disturbed them I would probably be dead. Of course, I am dead anyway, for all practical purpose..."

"Didn't you talk to anyone about what happened?"

"I saw a doctor, about six hours after. That's not the problem. No one is denying that it happened. It is just…"

"It muddies the evidence."

"Yes. Like trying to see if someone fell into a mincing machine as a result of treading on a thumbtack."

"Well… okay, let's get back to Slater. Did you talk to anyone about that?"

"No."

"Would that be unusual in itself? What I mean is, would a prisoner who was assaulted like that normally fail to complain to anyone? Wouldn't it normally be discussed by the witnesses? Didn't anyone ask you exactly what happened?"

"David… I don't think you can make a case that because I didn't talk about it, it didn't happen. Do you?"

"Christ, Pavel. I know I'm clutching at straws, but you have to give me something to work with. If we can't make a case…"

"I'm dead, yes. I know that."

"No, but…" Fryer stopped dead.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Pavel, I shouldn't tell you this, but I can't… I can't let this happen, and I know you'd be furious if I…" The lawyer paused. "Look, the captain is considering doing something. He ran it past me, in strictest confidence, to check whether the legal argument holds. And it does. But…"

"But what?" Chekov asked slowly.

"It's so like him, to do something like this. I knew he'd think of something, I knew… I mean, we all knew he wouldn't just leave you in here. But…"

"What are you talking about?" This time the question was more insistent.

"He told me you said something about getting out of here. He wants to go ahead with… with what he's planning as soon as possible, because he's afraid you'll get impatient and jump the gun."

Chekov frowned as he tried to make out the catch in the apparent good news Fryer was so reluctant to break to him. "Well, if you say that he has found some legitimate method to free me, and you consider that it has a high probability of succeeding, then obviously I will not take any unnecessary risks. But… you keep saying 'but'. There is a problem, isn't there?"

"You can't let him do it, Pavel."

"What? Do what?"

"He met the guard, Slater. He can probably prove it. He can certainly prove that Slater was ex-Starfleet. The Demosians want to use that themselves. He's planning to tell the police that he paid Slater to protect you. That should undermine the case against you without embarrassing the Federation."

"But… He would be admitting to bribery of a government employee. Surely that is a crime?"

"Yes, of course it is."

"And then he would be in here too. What is the point of that?"

"The point of that, is that once he's gone that far, he might as well fabricate evidence that you were obeying his explicit orders when you made the deal with the terrorists in the first place. I think if he'd had any idea that the Demosians were going to be so rigid, he'd have done that to start with, but everyone was expecting they'd keep the whole affair low key and you'd just walk out of it."

"I see. Fabricate evidence? Would that work? After all, I have already been convicted."

"It's a matter of interpreting the orders he gave you before you took the shuttle down. We'd argue that the captain pays lip service to the concept of non-interference but occasionally applies that concept rather… liberally. And expects his officers to do likewise. So if he worded what he said to leave you the option to intervene, and you did that, the responsibility for what happened rests on him. As for the fact that you've been convicted, that's okay. Demos' legal system allows any legal decision to be appealed on grounds of law or fact. And there's plenty of precedent. You'd think the Demosians invented the defence that they were only obeying orders."

Chekov irritably threaded his fingers through his hair. "You think the captain will do this?"

"Unless I can think of something better in time… And in time means before he thinks you'll stage a breakout. And I can't think of anything better. I've run every option I can. I've been through it all with Mister Spock and nothing you've told me now has given me any new ideas. There's nothing. Pav, he's talking about speaking to the Demosians tomorrow. I don't know what to do…"

There was a long moment of mutually uncomfortable silence.

Fryer clenched his fingers. "Look, Pavel, do you really have an escape plan? I mean, I don't want you to give up a chance to get out of here, and then find that Starfleet overrule him, and you end up getting killed, and…"

"Starfleet will overrule him."

"Not if he doesn't tell them what he's intending to do. But something else could go wrong. I mean, if it's a choice between the captain's freedom and your life, then…"

Chekov glanced away, unable to bear Fryer's awful indecision.

"I really don't know what to do, Pavel. But if you can escape, soon, I could tell the captain you'd agreed to do nothing until after you were safely away. He'd be mad as hell at both of us. I imagine I'd be out of Starfleet, but… but well, maybe I could help you find somewhere to go and… Well, anyway, there's no point discussing this if you really don't have a way to get out, is there? So do you?"

Chekov thought for a moment. "I don't have a plan. Someone else does. They need a pilot. They need… Leader, the man with the plan, he thought that I could persuade someone on the Enterprise to provide cover, a smoke screen, while I piloted us out of Demosian jurisdiction, and I told him, that I could use the automatic defence protocols to do that without help from someone on board, even using another ship…"

"And could you?"

Chekov shrugged. "Unless the captain has cancelled my access codes."

"When?"

"I don't know, exactly. I haven't said I will do it, and they won't tell me any more until then. But David…"

"Yes?"

"It is a very violent, evil scheme. Since I spoke to the captain, I have thought through the implications of what they intend to do. I don't know what they plan to do, exactly, but they will have to cause such confusion that no one is immediately aware that anyone has escaped. They can't use transporters, so they have to bring shuttles in. And they have to get access to the roof, or one of the open spaces between the blocks. Even when the building works collapsed, there was not sufficient breakdown in control for that to happen. They will have to cause explosions, at the very least. I think Leader must have people outside who are planning to use phaser cannon, or even photon torpedoes. If he thinks he can escape, he will do this. If I agree to help him…"

"But they'll do it whether you take part or not?"

"I am not sure they will. Leader is not… careless. Or desperate, yet."

Fryer didn't seem to know what to say.

"I would feel responsible, if perhaps hundreds of people were injured or died. They are not volunteers, soldiers, like you and me, David. They are prisoners."

Fryer carefully folded away the computer screen. "Okay. I… I understand what you're saying. But I don't have a third option. Pavel, what are we going to do?"

"There's really nothing you can do to get me out?"

The lawyer responded with a tired shake of his head. "Over a period of time, maybe two or three years, I suspect things will change here. I suspect a deal will get done. I'm not certain, and you don't have time to wait for that. As for the more immediate problem… There's always the risk that even if Starfleet admitted what Slater was doing, it wouldn't be believed. I think they should try anyway, and live with the political fallout, but…" He fell silent. Chekov looked as if he wanted constructive ideas, not mere moral support.

"Will… would something be done more quickly for Captain Kirk?"

"I… I would think, to be realistic, that Starfleet might go a little further, but on the other hand, you have just as high a profile as he does by now. And you… well, you look more like an innocent bystander. He's going to make himself look like someone who was prepared to bend the rules, and then prepared to let someone else take the consequences." He clipped the case of the computer shut. "I don't know what to say to you, Pavel." And then, looking up at Chekov's pale, impossibly tense face. "I shouldn't have told you what he was planning."

"They aren't keeping a suicide watch."

"What?" Fryer asked. "What are you talking about?"

"Historically, condemned prisoners were watched continuously, so they could not cheat the executioner. The Demosians don't seem to have thought of that."

"Pavel… No."

"If I simply knew I was going to die in three months time, I would never even think about it. Because after all, something might change. But it would make it unnecessary for Captain Kirk to do anything, wouldn't it?"

Fryer just sat there with his mouth open, unable to offer any counter-argument.

"But I can't," Chekov said, unexpectedly. "Even though I know how to do it efficiently and painlessly, I could not do it. Do you know why? Because you would all despise me so much and Captain Kirk in particular. He would wonder why he even tried to rescue me, such a coward, someone who would give up so easily…" His voice caught. "But I am. I am giving up."

"No, Pavel…"

Chekov clenched his fists convulsively. "Perhaps if I talk to Leader, we can work out an escape plan that won't require violence. I don't know what resources he has. I should not assume it is impossible until I have all the information. You must make sure that the captain does nothing for at least another two days. Tell him you have to check some legal arguments. Tell him I told you about the escape plan and it was… it was stupid, just a stupid fantasy."

"But…"

"Please, David. You are my lawyer, aren't you? You're supposed to represent my interests? Not anyone else's."

"Uh, yes."

"And you're my friend. You have to give me a chance to try and do this."

Fryer shook his head. "I just wish… I wish…"

"Just do what I ask."

"Okay." Fryer slipped out of his seat and picked up his computer, looking at Chekov and shaking his head slowly. "If anything changes, if you know anything for sure, you'll ask to see me, won't you?"

Chekov nodded.

"If I don't hear from you in two days… I'll assume there isn't an escape plan…"

"There will be."

"Okay. Now, we have to deal with the formalities. The next thing is the pre-trial hearing…"

"Why? Last time, there was none of this…"

"You pleaded guilty. That meant you didn't have to appear in court and could be sentenced in your absence…"

"Oh, yes," Chekov agreed calmly.

"So now there's this pre-trial hearing. That's when they'll go through all the basic evidence -- nothing new can be introduced by either side after that without the judge's permission, to prevent anyone springing any surprises. And they'll fix the trial date. The hearing is scheduled to happen in three days. Do you want me to make an excuse to come again before then whether I hear from you or not?"

Chekov shook his head firmly. "No. I have my deadline. The captain must do anything he is planning to do at the hearing, not later, but you will find a way to stop him acting before then. So, there is nothing else for you to do in the next three days. I will do… what I can, in that time."

"Okay. Right then." Fryer nodded enthusiastically, then suddenly seemed to have second thoughts. "Oh shit. How can they expect me to just leave you in here?" The lawyer thumped the computer down on the desk and pulled Chekov out of his chair and into a shaky hug. "Do you want me to call your parents or anything?"

The prisoner shook his head. "Not until you have some good news."

***

Chekov looked grimly at his breakfast and wondered at what point he'd start getting preferential treatment because of his death row status. The oatmeal until now had swung between the two extremes of watery and solid but this morning it had broken the pattern by contriving to be thin with lumps.

He'd lain awake the whole night, turning over Fryer's words, trying to find a way out of the trap in which he found himself. Aiding and abetting Leader, he now knew, was out of the question. His deductions about the engineer's plans had been proved correct. When challenged, Leader had been unwilling to give details, but photon torpedoes, hand weapons primitive enough to survive transport through almost any interference, and some form of nerve gas, for which Leader's co-conspirators alone would have the antidote, were part of the broad picture. Chekov wasn't too sure that there would be any survivors inside the prison. The sheer scale of the destruction Leader calmly described was almost beyond belief.

Telling everyone exactly what Slater had been doing here was still a possibility. It might even work, if the Federation and Starfleet didn't decide to brand him a liar. Maybe it wouldn't do the Federation that much harm… maybe they even deserved to be shown up, if they were interfering in the internal affairs of member worlds. It was so difficult to assess the potential damage, but Kirk plainly considered it worth his own freedom to avoid. In Chekov's mind that was the deciding argument.

He picked up a plastic mug of lukewarm, sugared coffee. It hardly seemed worth eating now - certainly there was no satisfaction to be gained from doing so.

As usual, he was almost alone at the table in the overcrowded dining hall. Four men sat at the far end, ignoring him. Even Leader had ceased harassing him. The Bear sat opposite, spooning up his cereal as if he was actually enjoying it.

The big man glanced up. "You wan' somethin'?"

"Scrambled eggs, caviar and pickled mushrooms, real coffee, iced vodka."

Bruno stared at him for a moment, then laughed. "Yeah. Good. Tha's what everyone wants. Right." He dipped his spoon into his bowl again, but his eyes were on Chekov's tray. "You don' wan' that?"

"Here." The ensign shoved the tray across the table.

Bruno moved his own empty bowl aside and pulled Chekov's closer. "You ain't said much, 'bout yesterday."

"Yesterday?"

"What your lawyer had to say t'you."

"Nothing. Short of someone else, someone reasonably convincing, confessing to killing Slater…"

"I really thought you was go'to get out of here. I thought all your frien's, they'd come up wi' somethin'."

"So did I." They had, hadn't they, Chekov reflected. One disaster after another. Suddenly he knew what he had to do. Just as Kirk had complained that Chekov was forcing him to take action before he was ready, now the roles were reversed. Chekov had to stop Kirk… And the only acceptable method was to undermine Kirk's plan, by making it useless. To do that, he'd have to confess to having killed Slater, in detail, including, presumably, that he had a motive, that he'd been raped. He could also, perhaps, write to his parents and friends to tell them what had really happened. That would help a little. But not until after the trial, in case his letters were intercepted.

"Bruno, will you do something for me?"

"Yeah, sure," the big man agreed absently.

"I never said anything to you about what Slater did to me. Would you be prepared to tell the police that I had told you… If I told you now… Could you tell them I told you much earlier? You could say I'd asked you not to tell anyone before because… because it would distress my parents, or something."

"I dunno… What's the point?"

"Please, listen, Bruno, I know I said nothing happened, because it meant I had no reason to kill him, but… But I've decided to admit that I did it…"

"Why?"

"Because if I don't, someone I… someone I respect very much is going to… to claim he bribed Slater to look out for me, to support my defence. And I can't let him. I can't let him end up in here."

Bruno traced his spoon thoughtfully around bowl. "But I want you t'get out, to tell my girlfrien'…"

"Bruno, I know I said I would, but I did warn you I wasn't going to get out. I can ask someone else to go, a friend of mine. I can do that for you."

The Bear shook his head dully, as if the whole thing was too complicated for him. "Can' do that. I'd get it wrong, make it worse. It woul'n' work."

"Bruno, please. I'd make sure someone took your message. I know I owe you that."

"No. No, I won' do it. No, I'm sorry. It'd just make things more'f mess than they are."

"There's no one else I trust."

Bruno didn't look up but his mouth twisted into a smile as he opened it to accommodate another spoonful of porridge.

Chekov wanted to hit him.

***

Fryer did his best to look positive as he came into the little cell at the courthouse where the pre-trial hearing was scheduled, but Chekov couldn't fail to see the disappointment eating into the lawyer's face. "I'm afraid I'm still here," he said apologetically. "I'm sorry. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't help them. They didn't care who else died on the way and…"

"But Chekov, you know what the captain is going to do. Couldn't you have contacted me at least, let me know…"

"No. He's not going to. If he hasn't yet, then he's not going to. I have worked something out."

"Worked something out?" Fryer demanded with damning scepticism. "What?"

"I confess. Then he has no reason to say anything."

Fryer's response was silence. Chekov tried to look confident but knew he wasn't succeeding. "It is not your responsibility, David. You did everything possible. This is simply the only alternative. I… I wish it wasn't."

The lieutenant pulled a chair out and folded into it. "Pavel… you can't."

"I can't let the captain… Well, I imagine he would cope rather better than I have, but these are not people you can lead, or influence. This is not a place where you can make any difference by being a better person to start with. He will only have further to fall. The man I'm closest to… I was closest to…"

"What about him?"

"He vanished. I don't know what's happening to people in here. There are suicides. The guards fake them too. If a prisoner makes trouble, he is just found hanging, or at the bottom of some stairs with his neck broken. I don't think the Governor is entirely sane. Often there isn't enough to eat. I can't… let him. Can I?"

"Pavel…"

"But to say I killed someone… People will believe me, won't they? They might believe it even if I did not confess, but… And for such a humiliating reason. It's so sordid. So… horrible, but I can do it. I'll be able to explain to my parents. To see them perhaps?"

"Your father's here, today. By the rules, you don't get any additional visits until after you're convicted, but you'll be due one family visit next month. And I'll tell him what's happening…" Fryer suddenly stopped, as if imagining himself explaining to Chekov's father that his son was allowing himself to be executed as a murderer to spare another man for whom the middle aged Russian probably didn't give a damn. "I suppose I'll work out some way to explain it to him."

"Before I go into court?" Chekov wanted to know, as if to spare his father even a few minutes of believing his son was a killer, and had been driven to it by such an assault.

"Yes, before you go into court. There should be time for me to talk to him." Fryer seemed to have composed himself somehow. "Look, Pavel, if you do this, there's no going back. No way you can change your story convincingly."

"The same applies to Captain Kirk, doesn't it?" the ensign pointed out. "It's just him or me."

"Yes," Fryer agreed. He stopped for a moment, as if he felt there was something else he should say that had temporarily escaped him. "Your father asked me to give you a message but… it's not really relevant." He paused to see whether Chekov wanted to hear it.

"Then what was it?"

"That this was obviously a mistake, that he didn't believe Starfleet would let you down. And that your mother said… this bit was in Russian. Teesicha… pat-zil-u-ev?"

Chekov's mouth smiled. "A thousand kisses."

***

Outside the security area where the cells were located, there was a cluster of familiar faces awaiting Fryer's return. The lawyer knew that most of them didn't know what Kirk intended to do. They were tense, but Fryer guessed that all of them still expected someone, the captain probably, to produce the necessary miracle. Uhura broke away from them.

"How is he?"

"Well, not very… not very positive, I suppose you could say." Fryer glanced around the busy vestibule to see where the captain was. With Kirk in prison, they'd have a lifetime to work on getting him out. With Chekov left where he was, they'd have a lifetime to try and forget. There was no sign of the captain.

"Where's Chekov's father?" he asked instead.

"He said he felt nauseous. Doctor McCoy took him off to the rest room."

Fryer swallowed. "It might be better if he wasn't in court."

"What?" Uhura demanded. "Look, I already made him wait a month before he could see Pavel because I used up a visit. He's going to start thinking this is a conspiracy."

"I think Pavel will find it easier to be… to stay in control…" To lie about having been raped and then having killed someone, he added to himself. "…If his father isn't watching."

"I'm sure his father is the best person to decide that," Uhura pointed out. "Really." She took Fryer's arm. "He needs you to hold up, too. Come on, David."

Fryer nodded patiently. He wanted the communications officer to disappear so that he could get a hold of himself, stop being emotional about this and see the way out that he knew must exist even now, but he was too respectful of Uhura to say so. "Look, Lieutenant, I have to do something very difficult. To tell Chekov's father something… I think you might do it better."

"That he was raped?" She seemed to shrink. "Oh, no…"

"Not that. Not only that. That his son is going to die. I don't know how to tell him and…" Fryer scrubbed childishly at his eyes with his fists.

"You can't give up!" she protested. All around them, the to-ing and fro-ing continued heedlessly. She caught sight of Kirk, coming through the huge entrance doors. "The captain won't let you give up."

"I know," Fryer said defeatedly.

She grabbed at his arm and looked hard into his face. "Chekov's not going to plead guilty, is he?"

Fryer simply turned his back on her. A Starfleet lawyer trod a difficult path between loyalty to his client and his service, but at the end of the day, Fryer's first loyalty was to neither. Like Chekov, David Fryer owed his soul to James Kirk.

***

The judge entered and the crowded court room went silent, then rumbled thunderously as the close packed participants and spectators rose to their feet.

Chekov, flanked by two guards, was dressed in civilian clothes. The law apparently deemed that to appear in prison uniform was more or less an admission of guilt, and had thus required this strange pretence that he was a free man. The garments fit comfortably enough, but their obvious second hand status rankled, while the metal tag on his right ear made the charade a nonsense. He stood, carefully keeping the courtroom in front of him out of focus. A moment later, everyone else sat, but his escort remained standing and he followed their example.

There were a few formalities, and adjustments of microphones and computer screens, then the serious business began.

"Your name?"

"Ensign Pavel Andreievich Chekov," he announced precisely.

"You are charged as follows, that on…"

"Sir!"

Chekov continued to stare straight ahead. Having made his decision, there was no reason to pay attention to temporary distractions. So long as it wasn't Kirk, he'd just wait for the interruption to be over, the heckler to be taken out.

"The court recognises you. Give your name."

Chekov frowned. In a Starfleet court martial, anyone who presumed to speak out of turn would be promptly removed. It annoyed him that his demise was to be delayed by such antics.

"Sir, Lieutenant Kurt Hausman, of the State Intelligence Service. I believe the accused is about to attempt to mislead the court."

"In what respect?" the judge inquired sharply.

"I believe he is about to plead guilty to a crime which he did not commit."

"Oh, God, no." Kirk had already said something… Chekov was so horrified, he let his eyes take charge of their own destiny for a moment. Directly ahead of him was Fryer, who was looking at Kirk, who was looking at…

Bruno.

"Did not commit?" the judge repeated waspishly.

Even smartly dressed in Demosian military uniform, with rank stripes and medals, the Bear was still astonishingly ugly. Presumably the stripes and medals explained why the judge hadn't had him thrown out immediately. He stepped out from a row of seats near the back of the court and walked up the aisle to stand directly in front of the judge. "No, sir. I killed Prison Officer Stephen Slater, in the course of duty. I had been ordered to locate an alleged Federation agent, operating within State Prison Facility Four Alpha. When the accused was committed to Four Alpha, we — that is, my superiors in the Presidential Intelligence Bureau — reckoned that a Federation agent within the prison, if there was one, might try to provide assistance to a Starfleet officer. Slater appeared to provide such assistance and we concluded that he was our man. I was then ordered to kill him."

There was only a space of a few seconds before the judge broke through the stunned silence to ask calmly, "I thought that the prosecution case was that Slater assaulted the accused."

Bruno shook his head. "There's no evidence that he did. No one saw the incident. Slater claimed to have attacked Chekov. I spoke to Chekov immediately after the alleged assault. He was not, in my opinion, sufficiently distressed for such an assault to have taken place." One of the prosecution lawyers stirred and Bruno quickly corrected himself. "What I mean is, he was talking as if he was angry, but close up, he struck me as quite calm, quite in control of himself. What he was saying, and his physical demeanour were at odds. He never described any details of the alleged assault, and he didn't seem to be in any pain immediately afterwards. He told me not to harm Slater, when I offered to do so, an offer which was consistent with my cover."

The judge nodded. "But according to the testimony of various prison officers, he said he would kill Slater himself. Why should he say that if Slater had not assaulted him? Do prisoners routinely threaten to kill guards?"

"When they get tired of actually killing each other," Bruno said deadpan. "Your honour, Prison Facility Four Alpha is not a kindergarten."

The judge nodded. "So, from what you know, the accused had no motive. And you were obeying orders, presumably. Why were you ordered to kill Slater?"

"On the assumption that he was a Federation officer — not merely a guard who objected to a prisoner being bullied — I killed him to prevent him revealing intelligence prejudicial to the Demosian government, sir." A whisper of stifled outrage like rats in the skirtings rose and fell among the spectators.

"And… why have you chosen to reveal this information now, Lieutenant…" the judge hesitated while he referred to the transcript on the screen in front of him. "…Hausman?"

Bruno looked away from the judge, towards the public gallery, a little theatrically. "I knew that a complaint in confidence to my own superior officers would result merely in action being taken to silence me. I thought a very public announcement would be safest for everyone." Which didn't answer the judge's question, Chekov thought, trapped in his own self-imposed detachment.

"So you are saying that the accused could not have killed Stephen Slater, since you carried out that killing?" the judge double checked pedantically.

"Yes, sir."

"The prisoner was not involved at all? He did not assist you?"

"No, sir. Only involuntarily, by allowing us to identify Slater. You could say that we used him to flush our quarry out of hiding."

"Then why would he plead guilty? Is he unaware that the death penalty now applies in this case?" The judge swivelled to scrutinise the defendant. "What did you think he was trying to achieve?"

Fryer stood hurriedly. "Sir, this line of questioning…"

"I'm aware of the rights of your client, Lieutenant Fryer, but I'm concerned to discover what motivates Lieutenant Hausman to make this startling allegation. The purpose of this hearing is to establish what evidence will be admitted at the trial itself. I think it is in your client's interests to cast the net as widely as possible at this stage. Hausman?"

"I believe Ensign Chekov was concerned that a certain Starfleet officer, or officers, might be about to implicate themselves in the crimes of which he has been accused, or other crimes, in order to obtain his freedom. I only know that at second, or perhaps third hand. But in my judgement Chekov believed it, and was prepared to act on that belief."

The judge looked at Chekov again, but still didn't seem to want to hear his side of things. "Have you documentation to prove that you are, as you claim, an employee of the PIB?"

"No, sir. I imagine that my personnel file is hitting the office shredder right now. But if they deny I worked there, I can reveal enough details to prove they're lying. And if they deny it, they might have difficulty explaining why I was an inmate of Prison Facility Four Alpha two days ago, and not now."

There was a ripple of cynical laughter from the public seating but the watchers soon fell back into tense silence.

"And presumably, faced with a choice between admitting you were employed or seeing even more of their dirty linen airing in public, the PIB will acknowledge you." The judge scowled. "One more question, Lieutenant."

"Sir?"

"Your orders, you claim, were to kill Prison Officer Slater. You did in fact, if we are to believe your claims, kill Stephen Slater. Yet your scruples will not permit you to allow Ensign Chekov to confess to this crime and face execution as a result. Why?"

Hausman looked across at Chekov and shrugged. "I do my job because I'm paid, well paid, because I'm trained to obey orders, because it's my duty and I'm content to let the government take responsibility for the dirty tricks. Slater was… exactly the same kind of man I was. Taking the same risks, playing the same game. He'd have killed me and not lost a night's sleep." He sighed. "I've always slept well too. Until now. Ensign Chekov was a prisoner because he wouldn't stand by and see innocent hostages killed. He was abandoned by his superiors because they didn't want to upset the political apple cart. I wasn't worrying about any of that, but when he asked me to lie, so that he could risk execution rather than see the same injustices visited on another man, I suddenly found I had a conscience after all."

The judge nodded and wrote something laboriously on the notepad in front of him.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Hausman. Please be seated."

The court was perfectly silent. The eyes of over a hundred worlds must be fixed on this planet, this courtroom, this moment, Chekov thought, watching the government lawyers squirming.

Fryer stood up and cleared his throat. "Sir, we request that all charges against my client relating to the death of Stephen Slater be dropped forthwith. The evidence was never more than circumstantial, and in view of Lieutenant Hausman's… uh… confession, is completely discredited. It would be intolerable to allow the shadow of a capital charge to hang over my client for another moment."

Chekov suddenly saw the rest of his life stretching in front of him in Prison Facility Four Alpha, and wondered if the judge, and Fryer, shouldn't be aware that a capital charge might look more like the light at the end of the tunnel.

"And we beg the court to consider," Fryer continued, getting into his stride now, "whether a government so desperate to track down and eliminate a supposed Federation agent that they would knowingly allow an innocent man to die for that purpose, might not have been overzealous in imprisoning that man, and thus setting up this trap, into which Prison Officer Slater, perhaps another innocent, subsequently fell?"

The prosecution lawyers still appeared to be hunting for vital papers that would instruct them in dealing with this most unexpected upheaval in their brief.

Chekov dug his nails into the palms of his hands. Maybe he'd only be going back to the prison for a few days, a month perhaps at most, while it was all resolved. If he could survive that long without Bruno's protection…

The judge rearranged his notepad and pen. "Thank you, Lieutenant Fryer. Please sit down." He looked around the court, at the lawyers, attendants, spectators and, finally, at Chekov. He could have been weighing arguments, recalling legal precedents, but the ensign couldn't escape the impression that the faintest trace of emotion chasing across his face, or the lack of it, might yet condemn him to death. Then the judge spoke. "This court instructs the prosecution to withdraw the charge of murder against the accused. In addition, the accused — I'm sorry, Ensign Chekov — is hereby released on his own recognisance, with no restrictions, pending a formal inquiry into the earlier charges against him." The judge suddenly surged to his feet, dragging the rest of the courtroom after him. "Lieutenant Hausman, I will see you in my chambers. The hearing is terminated."

Fryer vaulted over his table and flew to the front of the dock. "Chekov… Pavel… You heard the judge! Let him out of there, you… you…"

Frantic signalling followed between the guards inside the dock with Chekov and whoever was on the outside of the security screening. Then the door at the back swung open. The escort reluctantly stepped aside to let Chekov out of the court. The constraints of security were such that he now found himself in the bare, narrow corridor leading back to the cell where he'd earlier met Fryer, but Demosian design apparently allowed for the occasional innocent verdict. A heavily reinforced door issued into an office, and another office, and thence the grand atrium at the centre of the justice complex. Chekov took a deep breath and realised that his eyes had filled up with tears and he couldn't make out a single face in the crowd that surged toward him.

"Thank God!" James Kirk said for both of them, and pushed Chekov into his father's arms.