The loud banging at the door reverberated through the entire room. It echoed again, finally rousing its occupants. T'Pol sat bolt upright in the bed and Trip groggily put one foot on the floor to get up.

The door flew open and three Iustreans barged in, weapons slung over their hazmat suits. Trip was on his feet barring their access before he was even aware he had moved, signaling to T'Pol at the same time with his hand to stay put. A black mass of rage was coming at him through the bond, the kind of rage that would obliterate everything in its path, and Trip's main concern was to hold T'Pol back before she went on the attack and the whole scene devolved into a nightmare. He had already scoped the aliens, seen that the weapons were not drawn. Other than their sudden irruption, possibly from the lack of response to their knocking, they were not aggressive.

He felt T'Pol get off the bed and start moving on them, repositioned himself so that he was in her way, his body a shield between her fury and the unsuspecting men. Through the clear shields of the suits he could see they wore uniforms and were male. "It's okay, it's okay." He half-turned to her while keeping the men in sight. "Why don't you go get dressed?" pleading with her in the bond to just go, sending reassurance that this was all fine. After a few beats, she marched into the bathroom, her arrow-straight back an exclamation point against the men. Trip could finally let go of the breath he had been holding. Of course, the Iustreans didn't know any better than to barge in on a Vulcan in its private chambers. Especially a female Vulcan. They would never know how close they came to a bad outcome.

"What is this about?" he gruffly asked the uniformed men. It dawned on him that they must come from another region of Luspypso, one where the virus had not yet spread.

"We are a protective force. We are taking you to the containment camp. You have ten minutes to pack up and come with us."

"Just us?"

"No, every alien in the hotel. We must leave now."

T'Pol stepped out of the bathroom at that moment, fully dressed and wrapped in Vulcan dignity. She had obviously overheard the men. "You're ok?" asked Trip as he proceeded to go get dressed as well.

"I will attempt to comply" came the haughty reply. At least the bond no longer felt like she was going to break the men like straws.

One thing Starfleet officers could do easily was pack in ten minutes or less. Soon they were at the door of the hotel room, looking the same as on the day they arrived. Trip couldn't feel anything more through the bond, T'Pol's control was iron-clad. Part of him wondered why she had to maintain such a tight handle on things, it wasn't like he had never felt her anger through the bond. Especially as she had been unusually irritable lately.

"The stairs." the leader of the men curtly indicated.

"Obviously." Came the answer from the Vulcan in the party. It was true that the hazmat-suited Iustreans lining the stairs, hands on their rifles, were somewhat of a dead giveaway. If he had any doubts before, Trip now knew for certain that T'Pol was irritated.

"You need any help?" he asked, knowing he would be shot down with either a glance or an acerbic remark but he'd rather she be irritated with him than her get into a confrontation with the armed guards. For his trouble, he was skewered with an eyebrow, a glance, and an acid "If one needed help, logically, one would ask". One of those times where success on all fronts was not the sweetest victory. Did he mention she had been irritable lately?

A number of aliens were already making their way down the stairs, single-filed, the uniformed Iustreans at each landing preventing any motion other than downward. Once outside, they could see that hundreds of aliens of all species were slowly being gathered under the watchful eyes and rifles of many more tall Iustreans in hazmat suits. There were a few civilians around that early in the morning, not wearing hazmat suits, probably early risers and definitely not enough in number for any kind of hormone-driven crowd frenzy. Trip realized that the hazmat suits must also be filtering the defense pheromones because the virus had to be present and active among so many hundreds of aliens of all possible species.

They were herded through the streets to the bottom of the giant stairways that allowed passage out of the sinkholes. Trip looked up at the stairs stretching all the way to the top. He had only ever taken them the easy way, down, and the way up looked daunting, especially when he had less energy from lack of food, they hadn't eaten since they'd finished the reserves from their dinner early the day before. Since he'd finished their reserves, T'Pol claiming not to be hungry.

He turned to her. "You'd think they'd have put the elevators back in service for this."

She too was looking up at the climb, considering. "Using the elevators would mean taking the aliens through loci with higher population density. They would have less control on the crowds. And it would take longer." She read the interrogation in his eyes. "The elevators can only hold so many at a time, the rest would be waiting in the streets."

Trip nodded. So many aliens in the street right around the time the city center came to life, hundreds and thousands of Iustreans streaming out of their tall towers to go about their day, everyone anxious about the alien virus, pheromones gone wild, there would never be enough hazmat-suited policemen to protect the aliens from the crowd gone berserk.

He looked up again. There was no other way but to climb the hundreds of stairs. He would do it the way his father would tell him whenever he complained, one step at a time.

xx

Hoshi finally breathed out, paying silent thanks to the deities of the universe. They were back in orbit around Luspypso. There may be a quarantine around Luspypso, and she may be held to twenty-five thousand feet perimeter, unable to transport her crewmen and captain directly on board, but she had brought his ship back to Archer. With a few scorch marks and Trip was going to have a fit about some engine parts but it wasn't like she fell asleep at the wheel, and the ship worked just fine. She didn't expect a medal but at least a note of thanks and recognition would be nice. Because if she hadn't brought the ship back, she would never have heard the end of it.

She motioned the cadet at her station to hail the captain. He turned around with a frown after a couple of minutes. "Excuse me, sir, the captain is not responding."

Now what? She had been talking with Archer for hours now, the connection had become crystal clear and stable, and now he could not be reached? "Try Commander Trip, or T'Pol."

That too was unsuccessful, as was Ensign Adigo and everyone else they tried. Finally Reed looked up from his station "They're jamming the communications."

You think?! Hoshi may be mad at him but she was not unprofessional. "Travis, can you get a read on what's going on down on the surface?" Archer had mentioned the situation was tense, they were all virtual prisoners in their rooms, something about the Iustreans reacting negatively to the aliens.

"There's a congregation of aliens on the surface next to Ahrijht. There must be hundreds of thousands of them!" The helmsman turned to her in puzzlement.

Now what in the blazes was going on?! All she wanted was to give Archer his ship back and stop being acting captain. Was that too much to ask? She had tried arguing with Malcolm that since Wygdeld and Yonde were not really Federation, the emergency order had been illegal and therefore she was not acting captain and the usual chain of command should reassert itself. But he had refused to have any of it. Legitimate or not, somewhere in the Federation books there was an emergency with her name on it.

"Any sign of aggression? Are the aliens in danger?" Quarantine or not, if her captain and crew were in danger, she was taking the ship through.

"I am not seeing any weapons discharge and everything seems orderly." Travis looked at her with a question mark. "Just a huge gathering."

"Let me know the instant there is a change. Find out what you can about what's going on, monitor public communications, the usual." She turned to her former station. "Cadet, keep trying to raise the Captain." Hoshi made a point of not looking at Malcolm. She was peeved he wouldn't go along with the idea he should be in command.

Her chair intercom beeped. "Any news?" That was Phlox.

"I'm sorry, Doctor, we haven't made contact yet. We'll let you know as soon as we do." Hoshi could feel the tension in Phlox's voice. She was very sorry she had nothing further to tell him.

"Captain, if I may?" Malcolm was standing next to the command chair, rigidly at attention. Every time they had a tiff, he retreated into his unemotional English persona. Well, she could and would match him at his game.

"Lieutenant." She waited then realized she did not want him to say what he had to say on the bridge. He, Phlox and she should be the only ones in the know until they had a resolution.

"In my ready room, Lieutenant." She walked behind him. Angry or not, dispute or not, he still had a very nice ass.

xx

The first sun was rising on the horizon when they got to the top. Trip turned to look at T'Pol, absently noticing she seemed slightly out of breath, some errant hair stuck to her forehead. They must have walked up the stairs faster than he thought. T'Pol suppressed a shiver and Trip looked at the sky. It would be another couple of hours before the second sun rose in turn. She would be warmer then.

He turned to look back at what should have been the sands of Ahrijht. Instead, there was a crushing mass of aliens of all kinds, sizes and genders, more than he had ever seen before, hiding the red sands that he knew were underfoot. The mass was moving forward like an undulating amoeba as more and more aliens joined it, coming up the stairs from the city centers or crossing on foot from one of the other four city centers, even those a few miles away. The gathering must have started at the stroke of midnight over there. Trip would have liked to reach out to Archer but something told him to exercise discretion. He didn't want to see his communicator be confiscated.

Soon they were deep in the body of the crowd, walking forward slowly, their progress stopped every so often by the wall of the bodies ahead of them. They were a good five hundred yards from where they started and it had taken close to an hour.

Trip leaned over to T'Pol, pointing with his chin at the crowd-control barriers that lined each side. "These things must go all the way to the containment camp."

She looked at the hazmat-suited and armed Iustreans posted every few yards on the other side of the barriers, preventing any escape. "It would seem so. Based on Iustrean statistics the total number of aliens in the region should spread over less than a kilometer but there are over three kilometers between the camp and the city center."

Trip tried to estimate how many people were around, it certainly seemed more than the number T'Pol had quoted. There were as many behind them as ahead of them, stretching back all the way to city center 5. He turned to T'Pol but she had anticipated him. "Assuming the one hundred and ten thousand is a daily average of aliens transiting through Ahrijht, it would not include those that are resident on site. There is also the possibility that the official number somewhat underestimates the actual count."

Somewhat underestimates, for sure. Trip nodded, making a mental note to not rely on Iustrean statistics for any reason.

As they kept moving forward, eddies started forming in the crowd, a semblance of order was appearing, helped along by tall Iustreans in colorful hazmat suits that seemed to be directing the flow along the way. Soon, the throngs were moving in different directions according to a time-honored practice and they found themselves in a line that snaked back and forth for hundreds of yards, bordered on each side by Iustreans behind the control barriers. It was obvious there would be no side excursion from that point on.

Trip craned his neck, trying to glance over the crowd, see ahead where it all led or if he could locate other crewmembers. A colorfully hazmat-suited Iustrean appeared right next to him as if by magic, patiently explaining to everyone within earshot that they would be scanned for the virus. Those that were shown to not be infected and not carry the virus would be free to leave the planet, at their cost. The sick ones would be sent to an isolation camp further out in the sands of Ahrijht, far away from the city centers. The containment camp would be were virus carriers resided while waiting for the disease to erupt or subside, and if they didn't catch the disease, they would be free to leave the planet.

Trip was approaching to ask the Iustrean representative how long the line was but the Luspypso native noticed him first.

"You are Human?"

"Yes sir, I am."

"You do not need to wait in line. Humans are not susceptible to R'Shur L'lipa. There is a line over there" he pointed to an area beyond the line of uniformed officers to the left. "Hover-shuttles will bring you to the spaceport."

"My wife is with me."

The Iustrean looked over at T'Pol, nothing in his expression changing. "Only Humans. She can meet you at the spaceport after she's been cleared." And the representative turned around to answer another alien.

"I will be fine. Go ahead." T'Pol urged him to yield to what may have been a piece of advice or a directive, they were not sure. Trip lingered, unwilling to leave her alone, trying to balance the Enterprise's need for its chief engineer against his reluctance at leaving her behind. On the other hand she would not appreciate the baby-sitting. She was a commanding officer on the Enterprise and perfectly able to take care of herself.

The Iustrean representative turned around at that moment, seeming surprised to still find him there. "I told you, Humans must go directly to the spaceport." The tone left no room for discussion. The Iustrean moved on, padd held in three-fingered hand.

Trip turned to T'Pol "I'm not sure how long this line will take."

"Without knowledge of the scanner set-up, it is impossible to estimate but I doubt it would be possible for the Iustreans to maintain crowd control over an extended amount of time. I would expect no longer than twelve hours."

"Darling, Vulcans are patience itself. The aliens here will start a riot of their own after six hours."

She looked around. "I am not sure the armed officers on either side would approve."

"Well, hopefully it won't be twelve hours. I'd like to have you back on Enterprise a lot sooner than that." T'Pol looked sharply at him but did not say anything, just indicated her understanding with a brief nod.

"I'll see you on the ship." Trip held two fingers for her, squeezed her hand for himself. He stepped through the throngs of people and disappeared from sight.

xx

Reed and Harris looked at each other coldly across the vastness of space. The two men had started as mentor and mentee, could easily have become intimate friends, so close were they in their philosophy of life, and had ended up instead sworn adversaries in an endless game of one-upmanship.

"Lieutenant."

Reed sneered inwardly. Always Harris's old trick to remind him that he held a lower rank. As if it made any difference any more. It might have at some point, but that was long ago, before Malcolm built his experience out in space, one unexpected turn at the time. He was at least Harris' equal in his experience of life.

"Harris." Two could play at those little mind games. But this time Reed had the upper-hand, he could afford to go first. "Interesting things happening in Nausicaan space. Have you heard?"

Harris just looked at him coldly. Reed knew that Harris' next move would be to try and ferret out how much he knew. While he professed to disdain Harris and everything he stood for, the reality of it was that he enjoyed their mental swordplay, the carefully orchestrated duet of moves and counter-moves they engaged in whenever they had to deal with each other.

"Nausicaan space? You don't say?" Harris was going to play it close to the vest.

That would usually be fine but Reed didn't have that kind of time. "I'd love to play our usual guessing game but I really don't have time, so let me make this easy for you. I know what your patsies were doing in Nausicaan space."

Harris just stared. Reed could tell Harris was not pleased, which satisfied him immensely.

"So help me understand again, how was this supposed to work?" Reed needled him. "Did you really think your men could just go into Nausicaan space with a cargoload of weapons, drop it off with some rebel group trying to prevent a stable government from forming, and come back unscathed to Federation space? Who selected these idiots anyway?"

What Reed was thinking was 'And how were they going to get the serum now?' If Enterprise had gotten into a tussle with some Nausicaan police force they certainly were not going to let them come in, sorry just passing by, on their way to pick up the serum.

Harris's reaction was unexpected. He laughed, shaking his head. "So you think that's what it was, supporting a rebel group?"

Reed narrowed his eyes. The man was as close to a nut job as they came, constantly plotting and twisting the truth. "That's what your patsies thought it was," he hedged, unsure how to play his hand, thinking furiously.

Why would Harris send arms to the rebels knowing they would be intercepted? Unless... Unless that was the whole point. "The container was empty." The thought came to him like an epiphany. He thought back to the conversation with Wygdeld, about the ships showing out of nowhere and interrupting the drop, blowing up the cargo container.

On the screen, Harris chuckled. "You've always be really good, Lieutenant, you're sure you don't want your old job back?"

So there had never been any arms and the cargo was a make-believe drop. Probably to make-believe rebels. Which is what a government would do in order to gain legitimacy. That changed everything. Nausicaan governments were incredibly unstable. But then why did the police attack? Try to make the men disappear? So there would be no witnesses?

No, it was because they were not real agents, not savvy enough, no paranoid enough. He had to keep reminding himself of that. They were just gun-for-hires given a one-way mission with a fat paycheck and never realizing it was too good to be true. Trust Harris to put together something like that.

Reed shook his head "Wygdeld and Yonde... what names. Did you have an imagination break-down? Anyway, I know the Nausicaan government owes you a debt of gratitude. And you're going to collect on it."

On the screen, Harris looked disbelievingly at Reed. Reed went on "It's not a question, by the way. You are going to collect on it. Or I'm going to let the Federation know how Section 31 has been supplying arms to the rebels against the current government. Kind of fun since it's the opposite of your game plan. Playing god with a whole sector of space, not knowing how this is going to turn out in the long run. I'm sure there are plenty of other worlds who are going to be thrilled hearing about this."

Reed stopped Harris with the flick of a wrist before he could explain. "I am sure there are lots of great reasons for it and this is in the best interest of the Federation and everyone around, yada, yada, yada, and to be perfectly honest, I don't care. What I care about is this. We're in orbit around Luspypso, and they're having some major deadly plague. There is a world on the other side of Nausicaa, the Sari'Loman. They have the serum these guys need, but we can't spare the time. So you are going to reach out to your Nausicaan buddies and have them arrange to get the serum and bring it to us. We'll make life easier for them by meeting them in their space. Or millions of people will die that shouldn't have died. So for once you'll be playing the right kind of god."

Reed eyed Harris, trying to gauge the impact of his words. This would be such a small payment for Harris to prevent a huge scandal from blowing up for Section 31.

Fortunately, Harris was really good at figuring where his best interest lay. He leaned forward towards the vidscreen. "What is it that you need exactly?"

xx

T'Pol had watched Trip leave on his way to the Human line and to the spaceport. When she could no longer see him, she closed her eyes. Ever since the morning, when the irruption from the Iustrean guards had jolted her awake, heart and head pounding in an unpleasant beat, she had known that she wouldn't be able to hide the symptoms of the disease much longer.

Initially she hadn't even realized she was sick, Vulcans' autonomous feedback and control adjusting automatically to the signals that her body was sending her. Focused on Trip's biosigns, she had failed to notice the totality of the symptoms, the feeling colder than usual, the sleeping longer, a vague and constant feeling of nausea.

When she did take note, she had convinced herself it was a minor ailment unrelated to the death of the l'lieoihs. Until she researched the R'Shur L'Lipa virus and finally acknowledged that she was sick with a disease often fatal in Vulcans. She had maintained an iron-clad control on the bond and on the symptoms, worried that her illness might trigger a frenzied strike from the Iustrean staff, not wanting Trip to know or he would have insisted to stay with her even at his personal risk.

But now the fever was creeping higher, taxing her system and making it harder to keep the symptoms in check.

Trip's sudden departure had allowed her to ever so slightly relax her control. In hindsight, that may not have been the best course of action. She almost fell as soon as she did, finding her head was swimming, making it difficult to maintain her balance. Her attempts at re-establishing control were unsuccessful, her mental fingers slipping over the fever controls, the nausea churning higher.

Staying on her feet was the only challenge she chose to concern herself with, unsure what would happen to her if she were to fall, unsure that she could trust the Iustreans. Once she was in the sick camp she would be protected from Iustrean crowds.

She had no idea what would happen there and she knew she would be alone. Humans were immune, the entire crew would be on Enterprise. Trip would be on Enterprise.

Kaiidth. What was, was, she didn't have the strength to ponder the future. The present boiled down to inching along with the crowd. She fixed her gaze on the heels of the boots of the alien in line just ahead of her, moving when the boots moved, stopping when they stopped, oblivious to anything else.