((Chapter heading is from Miss Jessel, and the next one is going to be her next line … Yay!))

Leonard's situation hadn't been good to begin with, but now, for the first time, he seriously doubted if he stood even a small chance to survive this mess. He had been kept short on water the entire time, but after his first few days in the cave it had been bearable.

The idea what might be ailing the Dariis had come to him the first night he had spent in the Proctophantasmist's office, curled up in the corner of a spare room. The hysteria they displayed could easily mean that even though they could breathe, the oxygen couldn't be processed. That pointed towards environmental poisoning, as he had said on impulse, and it could help to determine what exactly the poison was. Leonard had gone through a list in his mind that could cause beings in a water environment to behave as the Dariis did, and he had arrived at three or four substances that came into question. He'd had to wait patiently until the morning to be able to check – he was locked up, after all.

His tests had verified his suspicion. The cause was chlorine. Free chlorine had no business being in Driin's ocean. Leonard's first thought had been that the pollution was a result of the volcanic activity that had destroyed the communication centre. That had happened too long ago, however. Free chlorine didn't remain free chlorine for so long. There would have been a few cases of poisoning, but no recent ones.

The logical conclusion was that chlorine was constantly released into the water. That was certainly not something the representatives of the Federation did, so it had to originate from here. Leonard had intended to tell these people here as much, but in the end decided against it. Even though he still couldn't respond, T'Kray was insistently communicating what was going on elsewhere, and it didn't sound good. He had to get out of here fast, and he had thought that if he was silent, if he did as he was told, maybe they'd just let him leave.

He had thought wrong. After revealing his discovery to the Proctophantasmist and starting to successfully treat the chlorine poisoning, he had found himself in the cave again. This time, he wasn't unconscious, so he knew for a fact that no-one was visiting him. The good part was that he was no longer being drugged. The bad part was that all he had was salt water and no means to generate heat. If no-one came within the next few days, this was it.

He could, of course, drink the salt water. In small amounts it would help, assuming someone came in time. If he didn't drink at all, he would die after a few days. He hadn't had anywhere near enough water recently, but since he had been fed he couldn't estimate how long it would take until he was beyond saving. If he kept taking only small amounts of salt water, he would survive longer, buying himself time. The question was if it was worth trying. He could also drink as much as he was able and be done with it.

'Oh no, you're not even thinking about that,' Leonard told himself firmly. He cupped his hands and gathered some water in them, contemplating it with mild concern before trying it. It tasted horrible. 'Enough for today.' He shook his head. 'And stop talking to yourself, for God's sake.' There was one thing he could do: He could keep trying to reach T'Kray. Sooner or later, whatever substance had stopped him from communicating with her would be out of his system.

ϡ

Jim had been more than a little distracted in his meeting with the last few council members. He had decided to stop trying to pretend that all was well. Communications were functional again, so he had a right to be worried about Bones's failure to contact him. He decided to tell Nentwych as much. Before they parted ways, he stopped her with a hand to her forearm. 'Professor … I have a question. I still haven't heard from Doctor McCoy. Everything's working again, so he should have called.' Nentwych thought for a moment.

'You're right. He should have. I'll let Imral know, I'm meeting him later.' Jim jumped on that. He put on the most charming smile he managed.

'Maybe I can join you? Ask him how long it'll take and so forth. I've done all that needs doing, it's up to the Dariis now.' The truth was, he did want to talk to Imral. It had been he, after all, who had asked that they come down here. Nentwych appeared to consider his words.

'Well … we're on a tight schedule Captain, but I'll see what I can do.' Jim took that to mean that he could only talk to Imral after he had been thoroughly intimidated. Since the Darii wasn't likely to be able to say where Bones was anyway, it didn't matter that much if he was primed to lie. 'How about that, you go and get yourself something to eat, and in the meantime I speak with him. I'll ask him if he's got any excess time on his hands, and if he does, I'll send him your way.'

Jim did as she said, albeit unhappily. He ate listlessly, more because it was a necessity than anything else. To Jim's amazement, the door to the brick house opened when he was just finished. He had half expected Imral not to come at all. When the Darii arrived alone, that came as an added surprise. Jim greeted him warmly and offered food, but Imral declined, stating they were short on time. Jim tried to read them, tried to find out if the being was afraid. He knew too little about the water dwellers to be certain. 'Imral, I have a few urgent questions.' Imral gurgled quietly. It sounded almost like a growl.

'I know. I can't tell you when your friend will contact you. I will, of course, remind him.' Jim nodded, then decided to be reckless.

'Just how do you want to do that? You don't have him.' Imral blinked twice. It looked strange, with the haw sliding over the eyes before the lids closed. Then the Darii turned and bolted from the house. Jim followed, swearing under his breath. He could do nothing to stop the water dweller from crossing the piazza and running without pause past the shield into the ocean.

Jim stopped his chase in the middle of the piazza, staring after Imral with a mixture of anger and frustration. He should have known better, should have blocked the water dweller's exit in advance.

Only a few minutes after Jim had returned to the brick house, someone knocked on his door. Never before had he been startled by someone announcing their presence in such an innocent manner. He and Bones had come unarmed, but Jim wasn't going to share his friend's fate. He took a knife from the kitchen and stood beside the door. He kept the weapon out of sight when he opened.

Of all the people Jim might have expected to visit, Mermer was the very last. Yet here he stood, obviously uncomfortable. 'Can I come in?' Jim stepped out of the way, still hiding the simple blade. 'I watched you chase after Imral. What happened?'

'Why would you care?'

'Just wondering why you're hunting the wrong people. Imral's not one of them.'

'Them? The board of enquiry?' Mermer raised his eyebrows.

'You have contacts somewhere?' Jim smiled slightly.

'I may.' He decided that Mermer wasn't a threat and put the knife away, but he certainly wasn't going to tell him about the telepathic link to his first officer, or of the fact that his crew had taken a captive. The nurse watched him with slight amusement.

'Understandable. That the best you got?'

'I wasn't chasing Imral because I wanted to harm him,' Jim said, ignoring the question. 'I wanted to ask a simple question. I … did ask a simple question. He didn't like it.'

'Would you have asked him about the board of enquiry?' Jim didn't buy that Mermer wanted to help. He had been less than cooperative before and had been completely unmoved by the dying woman in his office.

'Why are you here?' Mermer shrugged.

'I don't like what's happening here. Imagine that.' He stood close to Jim, too close for comfort. 'Look. People disappear. People die. Most of us just keep our heads down. This board isn't going to win anyway, they'll be dealt with eventually, and I intend to survive until then.' Jim raised his eyebrows.

'Well … actually, I don't know. I have to send a report of what's happening here. If I report that the situation is completely out of control, the Federation will have no interest in the planet. Sure, they'll intervene, but the board of enquiry would still win: The planet won't get into the Federation. The thing is, I'm starting to suspect that this entire mess is a plot, and not a plot spun by the humans or the Dariis. There's someone else involved. Someone who's neither, and I have no idea who or what they are.'

'I heard rumours that the board of enquiry is headed by a Vulcan, but I doubt that.' Jim frowned.

'Me too.'

'No-one has seen the head of the board. I think it's a human, it doesn't seem very much like the water dwellers. They're way too insipid to come up with a conspiracy.'

'Where does your contempt come from?' Mermer made a wide gesture.

'Look at this place! It's magnificent, a mark of what humans can create from virtually nothing. Have you seen how the Dariis live? In caves!'

'They don't need houses, Mermer. They have developed their own technology, and it's quite sophisticated. And this place is built with Dariian technology. Why does a man who thinks of the human race is so superior join Starfleet?' Mermer snorted.

'I'm not a Starfleet man. I'm a civilian, they offered me an interesting position at this place. It was educational, I'll give you that: I learned you can't trust anyone.' Jim decided not to dwell further on the matter.

'Is there anything you can do? Anything I can do?'

'You need to speak to someone with at least a clue. Imral had a foot in the board, half a mind to worm his way inside. He got scared before he could get in, but he knows a spy or two.' Mermer walked back towards the door. Before he left, he glanced back at Jim. 'Wait here. I'll see if I can get him to agree to meet you. It might take me a few hours to have him found.'

'Don't you dare harm him!' Jim said quickly. Mermer rolled his eyes and left without an answer.

ϡ

The crystals that spent light never stopped glowing. At night, the streets were just as bright as during the day. In the houses, and that included the brick building in which Jim lived, there were dark drapes that could be let down and pulled up, covering the crystals. That meant that the darkness was never quite complete, you could always see enough not to collide with anything if you walked around, but it was possible to sleep. The windows had shutters, too, so there was no disturbing light coming in from outside.

Jim had decided to go to sleep at 2200 hours. He might have to get up in the middle of the night, and he had to be fit the next day. Feeling rather unsafe, he had kicked a wedge-shaped thing from Bones's coffer under the door and placed his knife at the night stand. This way he would at least hear if someone tried to enter. Somehow, Jim actually managed to sleep, so when he did hear someone at his door, he had a head warning.

Never before had Jim felt he needed a spyhole. He stood still behind the door, the knife in his hand. He knew that unless they sent a group of well-trained assassins his chances of overwhelming an attacker were very good. He was young, he was fit, and he wasn't frightened. But butchering people with a knife was just crude, the fact that he was forced to even contemplate it making him sick.

'Kirk, are you in there?' Mermer's hushed voice demanded. Jim kicked the wedge out of the way and pulled the door open. 'I thought they'd taken you.' Mermer didn't sound overly distressed, it was really nothing more than the statement of a fact.

'Do you have something for me?'

'I have managed to convince Imral that you're not after him. He's willing to meet you. He wanted me for protection.' Judging from his tone, Mermer thought that was a ridiculous idea, and Jim had to agree. The fact that the man was talking to him now, in the dead of night, helping him meet someone in secret, was more than Jim would have expected of him.

'Thank you. When?'

'Now. Not that night offers much in terms of cover here, but at least most people are sleeping. Follow.' Contemplating the wisdom of this action, Jim stepped outside and allowed himself to be led to the pod station. 'Take this thing to the middle point, to where they can evade. They do that automatically if the pods would meet, but you can tell them to. Look inside, there's a lever.' Jim opened the pod and glanced inside. He had seen the lever when he had first travelled down here, but since they had been instructed to just get in, he hadn't given it much thought. 'Once you're in there, you flip the lever over to the right, because that's where the pod can go off the main track. You'll need to push hard, don't worry about breaking anything. You'll be brought to a maintenance point of sorts. Imral will be there. If not, I advise you to take the pod up to the island and never look back.' Jim wanted to tell Mermer that some people actually had a backbone, but he refrained. Instead, he got into the pod and started it towards the surface. The water around him was perfectly dark. When the pod veered off to the right with a screeching sound, Jim prepared, once again for a fight. The pod opened with a hiss, and he looked into a crystal-lit cavern with levers on one wall and little else.

'Captain Kirk, I apologise for my flight earlier.' Jim allowed himself a sigh of relief and left the pod. The Darii stood at the levers, waiting patiently.

'Imral, there's no need. I …'

'Not here. Please follow me, if you can bring yourself to trust a stranger in this place.' Jim smiled vaguely.

'It's not like I have a choice.' Imral stepped into the pod and turned the lever back before activating it. Quickly, they slipped out and closed it. The pod vanished into the dark, taking the only means of escape away. But behind the docking station, there was a blue button. Imral pushed it, and a door creaked open in a completely inconspicuous section of the wall. 'Now that's interesting.' He followed Imral through the door. Behind it, a stone path led away through what seemed to be solid rock. 'Where are we?'

'A system of caverns with several exits. It connects most of the maintenance stations near the Dome. They can be reached from here if access to the caverns through the water should be compromised.'

'If you breathe under water, why is this place dry?' Imral gurgled.

'It didn't used to be. We had to test our equipment for breathing in the dry air somewhere. We drained this place and constructed shields. We didn't want to have to travel up all the way to the surface to sit on a rock for hours.'

'The shields were constructed with the bacteria, I take it,' Jim said.

'Of course.' Imral halted at a junction of two passages. 'Here is as good a place as any. Let me tell you that no Darii ever agreed to participate in what the humans call the board of enquiry.' Jim raised his hands and looked left and right.

'Hang on, how do we know we're not overheard?' Imral gestured down the path.

'Do you see anyone? You don't hear much through the doors, and there is no-one in sight. Now about Doctor McCoy …' Jim pursed his lips.

'You have no clue where he is, I take it. Nentwych gave you the words you were to feed me. I know he's been taken away. I want to know where he is, and I want to know how I can get him back. I'd say preferably in one piece, but I can count that out already.' He turned away, facing the direction they had come from. This place, its people, all of it was a complete mystery to Jim. He took a deep breath. 'The question is, can you help me find him, Imral? Do you have anything, any idea, a hint, anything at all?' Slowly, the Darii walked around Jim to look into his eyes with a slightly dour expression.

'I don't know where they keep their captives. I would have needed your Doctor to treat people, humans and Dariis, that were drugged by the board. I also had a few people who were poisoned by something so horrible it kills within minutes. I hoped he'd have a cure for that, too.' Jim smiled sadly.

'The popular poison here is potassium cyanide, I was told. There is no antidote that is anywhere near fast enough, as far as I know.' Imral took that news stoically.

'Captain Kirk, if you wish to find your friend, you must infiltrate the board of enquiry. You can do that through Nentwych. She is … how do I say this?' Jim's patience was very limited.

'She is what, Imral?'

'I heard she joined the board for a male. A male who died quite long ago.'

'Long ago? Just how long has this board existed?' Imral shook his head.

'I don't know. But I know that he died over a year ago. There are rumours she's looking.'

'Brilliant.' It wouldn't be the first time for Jim to get what he needed by charming his way into someone's clothes and trust, but times had changed for him. He remembered T'Kray's words to him vividly, part of a speech that was as much a warning as it was an encouragement: He couldn't step out on Spock because he would cause the Vulcan very deep anguish. The truth was, he couldn't step out on Spock because he would hurt himself just as much. The thought to be with anyone else was sufficient to make him sick. Not that he'd necessarily have to go that far, but courting someone – anyone! – alone seemed beyond him, even for an ulterior motive. Anything else … 'I couldn't. I really think I physically couldn't,' Jim muttered. Imral tilted his head.

'Excuse me?' Jim shook his head.

'Thinking aloud. Thank you Imral, I'll … have to consider it.'

((More Riven-theft. The hidden passage, the pods … If you've played Riven, you're aware of that, of course, and if you haven't, it makes no difference to you. Your loss, though.))