"Spock?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Why are we here?"

"Well, various species have been asking that question for millennia, however- "

"No, I mean why are we here?"

"A malfunction."

"Caused by?"

"Mysouff"

"You gave it a name?!"

/

A few weeks before the earlier conversation, things had been well, if not eventful, on the Enterprise. Captain Kirk had been going over some paperwork involving the planet they were about to leave, and therefore his mind may not have been as focused as it should have been when Spock asked for permission to bring aboard a native organism "for various empirical purposes."

A bit distracted, Kirk had replied with "Oh, sure. But keep it under control, hmm?"

He didn't give the matter any thought until a few days later, when something soft had rubbed against his leg. Reaching down absent-mindedly, he found himself face-to-face with an amber-eyed, pointy-eared, oddly serious countenance. It looked him straight in the eye and said "Maowrr".

A few hastily (and angrily) placed inquiries led him to Spock, who appeared to have no reaction to his sputtering accusations other than a cocked eyebrow and one argument. "You gave me permission to keep him"

"When did I give you permission to have a cat?"

"Three days ago."

Racking his memory, Kirk vaguely recalled the conversation. "You never said anything about a pet cat!"

Spock remained impassive.

Kirk sighed. "Alright, you can keep him, but one problem, one complaint, and we are dropping him off at the next place we find on which is even remotely possible for a cat to survive."

That had been three weeks ago.

/

The other members of the crew seemed to have no objection to the cat, some even suggesting names. Though some were dignified (Tolstoy), some silly (Minty), and some downright strange (Eggcream), Spock had not decided on a name, wanting to wait until he found one that fit.

It had to be admitted though, that what Kirk was beginning to think of as The Cat was cute, in a certain way. Its fur was a soft white, except for a brown spot and a black one, the latter on the tip of his tail and the former covering the left side of his face.

McCoy, surprisingly, was one of The Cat's main proponents. "There's a history of ship's cats, Jim." he said, "and besides, it's kind of nice having him around. Pity Spock's not given him a name though."

Kirk thought back to his suggestion for a name. Glacier wasn't that bad of an idea compared to some of the others that had been bandied about. It was better than McCoy's suggestion, Twain. It was a dumb idea, to name a cat after some writer that had been dead for who knows how many years? History wasn't his strong suit, after all. Banishing the thought, he left Sickbay and went to the bridge.

As he stepped into the turbolift, he found Spock and The Cat, also apparently on their way to the bridge. The Cat, nestled in his first officer's arms, seemed to give him a self-satisfied smirk. Get ahold of yourself, he thought, It's a cat. It can't smirk. As the doors shut, and the turbolift started to rise, the cat, for some obscure reason, jumped to the floor and rubbed against the wall. Specifically, it rubbed against the section of wall containing the control panel. The turbolift shuddered and ground to a halt. It hadn't moved for two hours, which brings us to the conversation at the beginning of this narrative.

/

"Well, why did you name it Mysouff? Why not name it something interesting?"

"Mysouff has a historical precedence. It was the name of a cat owned by a novelist, Alexandre Dumas. There is actually an interesting story about that particular cat- "

Kirk cut him off. "Right now, that is close to the last thing I want to hear. I just want to say that we have been trapped in here for two hours and it's all because of that blasted cat."

"It has not been two hours, it has 1.83413 hours. It will have been two hours in approximately 9.6 minutes." With an inscrutable expression on his face, Spock picked up Mysouff and began stroking him absentmindedly.

"Spock, you are changing the subject. I want you to get rid of that cat."

"I know how you feel about nonessential creatures aboard the ship ever since the incident with the tribbles. However, I believe that incident has blinded you to the benefits of having animals aboard."

Kirk sighed. There seemed to be no way out of this one. "All right, Mysouff can have one more chance. That's one."

'Thank you". Mysouff purred.

"And now that that's taken care of, how in, on, or under the world are we going to get out of this thing?"