"Ambassador." Kirk stepped forward a little, when the Sythene party hesitated. "As I said, welcome aboard. Won't you please step down from the platform?"
Slowly, Ambassador Trygian did so. He looked around the room, staring suspiciously at first Kirk, then Spock, and then the other Enterprise crew,
before finally turning his scrutiny on the transporter console and the walls.
Kirk waited patiently. Although this did not seem typical behaviour for a species which had been starfarers for centuries, there was nothing to be gained by rushing the Sythene beyond their desired speed.
"Could you all - could you all open your mouths, please." the Ambassador said.
"I realise this is impolite, but it is necessary."
Of course, Kirk thought, he's paranoid enough to believe we might be Vouche plants. He set an example for the others by opening his mouth until he thought his jaw would crack. The ambassador examined Kirk's teeth carefully, and then turned and looked into the mouths of each of the other crew members.
"Thank you," he said at last. "We have been at war for a long time." For an instant, Kirk thought the ambassador meant to say more, but instead Trygian turned to the others of his party of envoys. "They are not Vouche."he said. "Come down."
Obediently, the others stepped from the platform, keeping close together. They were startlingly different from the almost-human Vouche. Short and stocky,
they had deeply mottled, ridged skin. Their eyes were without apparent pupil or iris, and Kirk had trouble telling where they were looking until they turned their heads.
"Where are the Vouche?" The ambassador asked.
"They are currently in their quarters. Would you like to see -"
"No. We would not. Where are their quarters?"
"Guest quarters on D deck." Kirk said, maintaining his patience and his smile with a little bit of effort.
"Where are our quarters?"
"Also guest quarters on D deck."
"How far from the Vouche?"
"A corridor away - that's about 150 yards."
"Not far enough. You must house us elsewhere."
"Ambassador, we shall do out best. How far away from the Vouche quarters do you wish to be?"
"As far as possible. The other end of the ship."
Kirk smiled and smiled, and kept his eyes warm and welcoming. "Of course. Will you excuse me please?"
He went into the corridor and took out his comm. "Kirk to quartermaster." he said.
"Singh here, captain. How can I help you?"
"Mr Singh, I need storage bay 87 cleared out, and transformed to guest quarters for our Sythene party."
"Yes, sir."
"How long will it take?"
"How long do I have?"
"Between fifteen minutes and an hour."
There was a small, very telling silence.
"Yes, sir. Singh out."
Kirk went back into the transporter room.
"Gentlebeings," he said, "Who would like a tour of the observation deck?"
Trygian turned to him. "Are the Vocherons there?"
"I'll find out." Kirk said. "Computer, location of the Vocheron ambassador and party."
"Working," said the computer. "Vocheron Ambassador and party are currently in guest quarters on D deck."
Ambassador Trygian nodded. "Very well. I confess I am curious about this ship of yours. But will your computer tell us if the Vocherons leave their quarters?"
"I can arrange that." Kirk said.
"Then please do so."
Kirk gave the necessary instructions, and then gestured to the door "This way,
Ambassador, gentlebeings, please."
As they walked down the corridor, Kirk said as casually as he could, "You will of course see the Vocheron Ambassador for the negotiations?"
"Of course," Trygian said, his powerful legs churning to keep up with the longer limbed humans. "Of course. It is merely that we do not wish to be -
taken unawares."
"I see." said Kirk, who wasn't quite sure he saw at all.
He was even less sure that he saw the next day, when the negotiations commenced. Ambassador Trygian and his party were late, so the Vocherons had been waiting for nearly an hour. Ambassador Tyssin showed no signs of impatience, however, simply watching the door unwaveringly.
When the Sythenes did arrive, they were in biocontainment suits, the sort of suit a Starfleet scientist might wear to work with hazardous or unknown biological contaminants. Kirk allowed himself a blink before he rose to the occasion, indicating the chairs prepared for the Sythene party, chosen for their suitability to the Sythene anatomy.
The ambassador and his aides, without a word, and without turning away from the Vocherons, dragged their chairs away from the table and arranged them so that they were next to the door, as far away from the Vocherons as possible. Then they sat, and suddenly each Sythene produced a sidearm, which they aimed at the Vocheron.
Aware of Security bristling behind him, Kirk cleared his throat and said: "Ah,
Ambassador? It's not usually Federation practice to negotiate while armed."
"Ohhh, let thhhhhem," Ambassador Tyssin said, showing no sign of being disconcerted. He smiled widely then, and the Sythenes drew a little closer together. "We don't mmmmind. It will all be the sssame in the ennnnd."
It sounded more like a threat than an expression of good will. "Ah, Ambassador Trygian." Kirk said. "Really, we would appreciate it if your party did not point their weapons actually *at* the Vocherons."
"What you appreciate is not our concern." Ambassador Trygian said, not turning his head from the Vocherons. "We are here to negotiate, but we are prepared to defend ourselves."
"My security people can defend you against any threat offered to you," Kirk said.
"No, I think not." Trygian said, and then, obviously dismissing Kirk ad his concerns from his attention, leaned forward slightly and said: "I presume,
Tyssin, you have a list of mandatory outcomes. Perhaps you had better simply tell us what they are and we can get this over with."
Tyssin smiled again, his mouth tentacles writhing. "Ahhh, nnno, little one. That is nnnot the way negotationssss work." Kirk sat down in a chair near the door, carefully out of the way of everybody's line of fire. He could feel the beginning of a headache coming on.
"Try not to let her get to you," Larssen advised patiently for about the 100th time.
"That's easy for you to say, NOTHING gets to you."
"Lots of things get to me. Professor Ridley just isn't one of them."
"Well, I don't understand how you can stand the bitch!"
"Mr Brand, that's not appropriate language." Larssen's voice was still very mild. "Firstly, you neither asked nor received permission to speak freely, and secondly it doesn't matter whether Professor Ridley is a civ scientist or a Starfleet one, she deserves your courtesy."
"She doesn't give me any courtesy! Or you, for that matter - I mean, this morning, when - "
"That's her prerogative. Mr Brand, if you're so distressed by her behaviour,
let's not give her the satisfaction of replicating it, okay?"
Larssen turned and walked away down the corridor, refusing to have anything further to do with the conversation. In truth, she was more upset at Professor's Ridley behaviour than she was happy to admit, even to herself. That morning, when the Professor had questioned her results on a mass spectrometer reading and insisted on rerunning the entire series herself,
Larssen had felt a hot wave of humiliation wash over her, a familiar feeling from her years at the Academy, when everybody else had been smarter and faster and more competent than she was, and there had been so few of the bright young people with time and patience for the slow moving, slow talking colonist whose body had outgrown her grace. Only her memory of what she had endured to get there had kept her from giving up. Since then, though, she had discovered that youthful precociousness was not all that was valued in Starfleet: in her postings at various Starbases, her methodical precision had won her the respect of other, more brilliant,
scientists. Here on the Enterprise, Spock himself seemed to trust her judgement and had never once questioned her work.
Professor Ridley, however, seemed to take Larssen's slowness as a personal insult. Today was not the first time she had criticised it. It was only the first time she had buttressed that criticism with other words: 'stupid', as well as 'slow'. 'A great stupid lump,' to be exact. Larssen felt herself flush again at the recollection, and kept her eyes down as she walked briskly to her quarters. It was odd how those she wished to see her as strong and competent viewed her as small and feeble,
and those she wished to admire her precision and delicacy saw her as a galumphing giant.
Once inside, went to the fresher and stood under the sonic shower to get rid of the sweaty hot feeling that seemed to go hand in hand with embarrassment, then pulled on her pyjamas, and sat down on her bed.
The last thing she wanted to do was examine her feelings about Professor Ridley, but she had too much innate honesty to pretend that she didn't know that examine them was exactly what she should do. Larssen closed her eyes,
slowed her breathing consciously until she was calm, and tried to separate herself from the shame she felt when Ridley's narrow, beautiful face came to mind. Why does she get me so upset? she asked herself, trying to be clinical about it. She's only one person. When I feel myself getting upset, I should think of all the OTHER people who don't act as if I'm a moron and a bumpkin.
It was sound advice. Larssen wished she had any confidence she'd be able to take it. She opened her eyes.
"Well, Coochie?" she said. "Any pearls of wisdom?"
Coochie sat indifferent on the dresser, and Larssen sighed and stood up.
Taking down her cello, she tuned up and began to play the sonata she had been practicing. She had learnt it well, however, and without the need to concentrate on sight reading it was too easy to begin to add emphasis, to draw out the inherent tension of the piece and increase the intensity of the -
She put the bow down. "Computer," she said, "display score for Clark String Quartet 26, 2078."
"Working." said the computer, and her terminal showed a new and complicated piece of music. Larssen raised her bow again, frowning slightly. Sight-reading this would be tricky...
Kirk looked back on the headache he had felt at the start of the negotiations nostalgically three days later, when the regular review of crew efficiency was interrupted at 1700 hours by Tyssin paging McCoy for a medical emergency in the Vocheron's quarters.
McCoy was out the door with his kit in his hand in a blur of movement. Kirk caught up with him at the turbolift, noting (not for the first time) that for all his aw-shucks-I'm-just-an-old-country-doctor act, McCoy could sprint like a track star and show the endurance of a marathon runner when a medical crisis demanded it.
"Come on, damn it!" the doctor was saying now, staring impatiently at the turbolift doors. "Come on, come on, come on! Jim, you need to have someone take a look at these lifts, they're getting slower -"
The doors hissed open and McCoy fairly leapt inside. Kirk followed, saying "Computer, command override this lift, straight to D Deck."
"Yes, captain." The computer said, and the lift started moving faster than normal, staggering both its passengers with increased V.
"Although what they expect me to do," McCoy said, "I have no idea. It's not as if they've let me get any data to compare a sick Vocheron with a well one! And without a tricorder I may as well just try laying on hands."
Neither the laying on of hands, nor the medical tricorder, were necessary. It was quite clear from the moment they entered the Vocheron guest quarters that the time for medical procedures, and for urgency, was past.
Tyssin's aide, Kythis, lay sprawled on the floor. His eyes were open and unblinking. That was not the reason Kirk and McCoy immediately realised he was dead, however. No, it was the huge charred hole in the Vocheron's chest that gave them that idea.
"What happened here?" Kirk asked, as McCoy knelt by the body.
"We donnnn't know, captain." Tyssin said.
"Kirk to Tomlinson." Kirk said into his communicator. "Ms Tomlinson, security team to the Vocheron's quarters immediately."
"He's dead, Jim." McCoy said unnecessarily.
"You just found him?" Kirk asked Tyssin.
"Yesss, we were in the other room, discussing the negotationss, and then I heard a noise, a falllling, and cammmme in here. And therrre he wasss."
Kirk looked at the scorched wound in Kythis' chest, and thought of the weapons of the Sythenes. "Just a moment." he said. "If you gentlebeings would go back in the other room, and remain there, we would appreciate it."
"Nnno, we musst remmain with our dead." Tyssin said firmly.
"All right. Please remain with him on the other side of the room and don't touch anything. I'll be back in a moment."
"But, wwwait, Captain. On the other sside of the rroom? I don't understand."
"Ambassador, this is clearly not a natural death. Therefore, it must be investigated. There are many things that can tell us how Kythis died, and it's better if nothing is disturbed."
"Investigatted? Howww, captain?"
"Ambassador, we will consult with you before any actions which affect you or the body of your colleague, rest assured. Now, if you will excuse me, I really have to talk to my crew." Without waiting for a further protest, Kirk went out into the hall, and when the doors had closed behind him, he raised his communicator and spoke.
"Spock, Kirk here. I need to know exactly who has been into and gone out of the Vocheron quarters for the past - better make it 6 hours. And I need to know where the Sythenes were that whole time."
"This will take a few minutes," Spock said.
"When it's done, page me, but don't say anything until I tell you I'm private."
"Understood, captain." Spock said, faintly disapproving that Kirk could doubt his discretion. "Spock out."