Thank you to all my readers and reviewers. On to the next chapter!

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"This way, Mister Reed."

Malcolm had hardly turned away from the partition than the Denobulan started moving.

"Wait, Doctor."

The glance Phlox shot the hand Malcolm had put on his arm to stop him made him release the grip, instantly reminding him of the Denobulans' dislike for being touched.

"Sorry," he said awkwardly. With a clearing of his throat he recovered his professional poise and added, "We don't know what to expect. I'd better take point."

Phlox tilted his head in composed compliance. "The control centre is at the end of this corridor."

The tone was polite but a bit strained, and Malcolm couldn't help but wonder if that stemmed only from his mindless blunder. How much did Phlox know about his 'betrayal'? How much had Archer told him? He himself had never addressed the issue with the Doctor; but if the man knew about his slowing Enterprise's search, he wouldn't blame him for feeling resentful.

This, however, wasn't the time to have his mind full of questions and doubts. Hand on his phase pistol, Malcolm shifted his eyes to the curving corridor and took his first guarded steps. "What is along this hallway?" he enquired.

Following him, Phlox started to enumerate rooms.

"If I remember correctly," the Doctor began, "there are two labs on the right. On the left, I seem to remember a third, bigger lab, a room with stasis units, and the generator room." He was silent for a few seconds, before adding, "I believe somewhere along the way there is also a toilet room."

"That's good to know," Malcolm said with a glance over his shoulder.

Coming up to the first door, he paused beside it, trying to catch any sounds that might be coming from it. Phlox stopped right in front of it, and Malcolm clenched down on his irritation as he purposefully disregarded the blue eyes that fixed him with curiosity mixed to impatience.

"I believe it is safe to assume that no one with criminal intentions has entered the facility, Lieutenant," the Denobulan commented, after a moment. "I'm afraid that the kind of danger we'll be facing – if any – won't be something you can shoot at."

"It may well be, Doctor," Malcolm calmly replied. "But it's better to be safe than sorry." And waving Phlox behind him, he grabbed his phase pistol and threw the door open; only to find that the room – a lab – was empty.

The corridor curved slightly to the right; with a last glance towards the clear partition, and Trip and Archer looking on from behind it, Malcolm proceeded along the hallway and out of sight of the rest of the team. He repeated the same procedure with the next door, and found himself in another empty lab. Everything seemed clean and in order.

"With all due respect, Lieutenant," Phlox said behind him, his tone getting more exasperated, "we are wasting time. We should go straight to the command centre and make sure the environment is not polluted."

Malcolm didn't particularly like having anybody tell him how to do his job; but in this case he had to admit that Phlox might have a point. His sixth sense still protested quite loudly that he should not overlook anything, but he quieted it by telling it that he would check the other rooms later.

"All right," he acquiesced. "Let's go."

Swivelling on his feet, he turned to exit the room and froze. A man in a white lab coat was standing in the doorway.

"Doctor… Trenton?" Phlox enquired tentatively after a stunned couple of seconds.

The man had a well-manicured white beard and hair that formed a sort of bright halo. White coat, white beard, white hair – Malcolm mused that he made a rather ghostly apparition, although his short and stocky figure was far from what his imagination attached to the word 'ghostly'. From a distance he could not distinguish the colour of the man's eyes, but he could tell that they had a compelling intensity to them.

"Do we know each other?" the Doctor asked in a scratchy voice.

"I am Doctor Phlox; I visited this facility once, about five years ago. I was part of the Interspecies Medical Exchange, before serving as C.M.O. on the S.S. Enterprise."

Malcolm watched Trenton's face, a face that was younger than his white hair would suggest, smooth into a mannered smile.

"Of course. How could I forget."

There was an awkward pause, which lasted but a second. Phlox waved a hand in Malcolm's direction. "This is Lieutenant Reed, Enterprise's Security Officer."

"We were worried about you," Malcolm picked up from there. "Starfleet lost contact with the station a week ago, and we were unable to establish any communication. Even just moments ago no one answered our pages and we had to use entrance codes to let ourselves in. And now an emergency partition has cut us off from the rest of the away party. Is anything going on, Doctor?"

"Going on?" Trenton eyes had shifted unhurriedly to Malcolm. "Nothing is going on. I don't know what you are talking about. I dropped the emergency partition because I noticed that someone had gained entrance to the facility, and feared we had intruders. As to our comm. system, we received no calls, but it is in perfect order."

Malcolm exchanged a quick look with Phlox. The Denobulan seemed somewhat perplexed.

"I'm pretty sure Commander Tucker, our Chief Engineer, will disagree," Malcolm said, returning his focus on Trenton. "Can you lift the partition?" he went on to ask. "The Commander is on the other side with Captain Archer and a couple of my men."

Another subtle smile curved the Doctor's lips, baring, this time, two rows of regular teeth. "This way," he said with a gentle tilt of his head, turning to lead the way.

As they walked further down the corridor, towards the room that Phlox had said would be the control centre, Malcolm unzipped his arm pocket and reached for his communicator.

"Reed to Captain Archer."

"Go ahead," a taut voice came back almost instantly.

"We have found Doctor Trenton, Captain. Everything appears to be in order. We are on our way to the control centre to raise the emergency partition."

"Understood. Archer out."

The terse, military reply had done nothing to conceal the Captain's relief in learning that everything would be fine. Yes, that was Jonathan Archer all right – the man who ran a ship like a family.

A rending flashback pounced upon Malcolm's mind, making him clench his jaw: Archer in the ready room, pressing him to speak, hoping he would offer a viable explanation for what looked like treason. Like a predator, the memory always attacked without forewarning, claws fully extended to rip and ravage. Later, in the brig, Archer had been hard with him, worried about his ship; but at that moment, when he had realised that his Officer had lied to him, his voice had quivered with hurt more than anger. Malcolm had felt the pillars of his world – honour, integrity, loyalty – rock and crumble, and crush him in shame.

He still hated himself for keeping things from his Captain. He – the man appointed to keep Archer from harm – had wounded him, and deeply. Did Archer still consider him part of his family? Maybe his relief just now hadn't encompassed his Security Officer's fate. With an inner mirthless huff he realised that after letting down his real father, he had also done the same with this father-figure; but unlike his old man, Jonathan Archer had been proud of him. Brilliant.

Forcefully, Malcolm refocused on the present and on the silence that stood like a fourth presence among them. He supposed that living on a science station with just five other persons was hardly conductive to loquacity, but Doctor Trenton seemed to have no questions for them, no curiosity to satisfy; it was odd, to say the least. Phlox too was keeping quiet, despite his naturally outgoing character. Malcolm sought his eyes to silently question him, but his glance was lost on the Denobulan, too deep in his thoughts to be aware of it.

Reaching the door at the bottom of the corridor, Trenton stopped and turned to give them another look. Malcolm could see now that his eyes were a light brown with speckles of green. They flickered with a glint that betrayed a quick wit; an uncommon intelligence. Well, this was no place for mediocrity. Finally pressing his thumb on a small pad beside the door, Trenton made it swish open.

Malcolm had expected a large room, but the control centre was surprisingly small. A series of monitors lined the far wall, with numbers and information being continually updated. A cup lay abandoned on the desk by one such screen, as if someone had left it in a hurry.

"I'm sorry our arrival disrupted your work," Malcolm said, more to make conversation than anything else.

Trenton flashed him a look. "Unexpected newcomers aren't welcome here," he said directly and without hesitation. He must have realised his tone had been quite harsh, because he added, more gently, "Although no alarm had gone off, I wasn't sure what kind of visitors had entered."

Malcolm was about to point out the fact that he would have done well to arm himself, before coming to investigate what kind of people – friends or foes – had invaded the place, but was anticipated by Phlox.

"How is Doctor Sahak?" the Denobulan asked, a measure of his natural affability returning to his voice. "He was very kind when I came here a few years back. I will enjoy meeting him again."

"I'm sure he will too," Trenton commented, as he approached a computer. With another polite smile he added, "You will join him presently."

He sat down and started punching keys, his fingers flying over the keyboard with impressive speed. Malcolm stared at the podgy hands work, while unintelligible information scrolled by on the screens. Suddenly Trenton stopped, fingers poised in mid-air.

"How silly of me to forget… I'm afraid I can't oblige your wish. As a precautionary measure, once an emergency partition is dropped it cannot be lifted before a few hours have passed."

"How many hours are a few hours, Doctor?" Malcolm wanted to know. His stomach muscles were still taut, and he wouldn't relax until they had rejoined with the rest of the away party.

Trenton blinked; then swivelled in his chair to face him. "Five," he said, after a barely perceptible pause.

"Surely there must be a way to override that." Malcolm made to take a closer look at the screen, but Trenton flicked it off.

"Yes, of course," he said. "With at least two deactivation codes." He stood up. "Time to find your friend, Doctor Sahak," he told Phlox, lifting his eyebrows.

Great. Malcolm reached again for his arm pocket and paged the Captain to inform him of the hitch, while in the background Phlox exchanged civilities with Trenton.

"I am sorry, Sir," Malcolm concluded. "I will keep you informed of any developments."

"All right. We won't be going anywhere," Archer replied grimly.

"This way," Trenton said for the second time in the space of a few minutes, that courteous smile of his once again gracing his round features.

They exited the control centre and retraced their steps, with Phlox now enthusiastically launched in one of his monologues on the importance or research into potentially lethal viruses. Malcolm followed the two doctors, hoping he wouldn't have to be spending five hours in the company of people who would undoubtedly carry on talking of things he could only vaguely grasp.

"Ah, the main lab, if I'm not mistaken," Phlox exclaimed, as they came to another nondescript door along the corridor.

"You have a good memory, Doctor," Trenton said. His eyes flickered as he shifted them from Phlox to Malcolm and back again. "Doctor Sahak will be surprised to see you," he said.

The lab door had a conventional handle, and Trenton waved a hand towards it. "Please, you first."

Phlox made to reach for the handle but Malcolm got there first. Denobulan eyes pierced him, and he met them with discomfort; he could read them like a book. All right. He was being a bit paranoid here. Withdrawing his hand, he gave Phlox free access to the door.

A room with dim artificial light appeared. Taking a step inside after Phlox, Malcolm narrowed his eyes, trying to adjust to the semidarkness. Weren't they supposed to find Doctor Sahak in here? Yes, he could discern a form sitting at a chair, with his back to them, in the far corner. He turned to ask Trenton what kind of experiments could be carried out in so little light, and his eyes were drawn to something that had appeared in the Doctor's hand. He might not recognize the model, but its shape was unmistakable, and it was pointing at...

Without a word of warning, Malcolm threw himself hard against the unaware Denobulan, falling with him to the floor. He scrambled for his pistol, but his movements were suddenly sluggish, his limbs not responding. Something was stinging his left shoulder, and twisting his head he saw that a small dart was embedded in it. Even the thought of lifting a hand to extract it cost him an effort.

"Doctor…"

Malcolm tried to form words, but his brain – or perhaps his tongue – would not cooperate. His breathing became quick and shallow, and darkness galloped towards him at full speed. With a clang, his pistol fell from his hand to the floor. As his vision narrowed, he saw Trenton kick it out of Phlox's reach.

There was a sound, coming in distorted waves: his communicator was beeping insistently. "What's the meaning of this?" a voice he barely recognised enquired indignantly.

He never got to hear Trenton's reply.

TBC

You didn't really think I'd give them such an easy time, did you? :-)