Disclaimer: This story and the characters I created belong to me. "Star Trek" belongs to The Powers That Be at Paramount…more's the pity.

Notes: This story was originally written August-October 2004…etc…etc.

The words that inspired this chapter? TAPED WORSE HUGGED ROUGE

Feedback welcome!

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The lobby of the Chief Minister's residence...

"Excuse me," Kirk said, as he looked at K-tel. "I have to take this." She nodded with a rueful smile and hugged his arm one last time before releasing him.

Kirk stepped slightly away from the First Greeter and flipped his communicator on. "Kirk here."

"McCoy here, Captain. I just finished the last of my tests, and I believe I've discovered what killed Ensign Jed-Ghar."

"Excellent news there, Doctor. I'm with Chief Minister K-bec right now; I'm sure she is as eager as I am to hear your results." Kirk looked over at K-bec, who nodded solemnly.

"Very well, Captain," McCoy said. "During the course of the autopsy, I found two foreign substances in Ensign Jed-Ghar's body, neither one of which by itself is fatal to humans. The one, that I already mentioned to you, was Klingon ipecac. The other, which I discovered later, is a variant of a psychotropic drug called 'hekim'."

"Hekim?" Kirk queried.

"It's a drug that makes its user extremely open to suggestion," McCoy replied. "It's very rare. Its production was banned on Hoya 6, the planet of its origin, and the plant from which it's made is not known to thrive on any other planet."

"How the heck did this drug get into his system?" Kirk asked.

"Unknown, Captain," McCoy answered. "I tested the residue from the wine bottle that Chief Minister K-bec was kind enough to provide and I found no trace of hekim at all - or any other foreign substance, for that matter. It is possible that the Ensign may have ingested the drug before ever beaming down to Jheniffur 8."

"Why do you say that, Doctor? He collapsed right after drinking the wine - we all saw it!" Kirk argued.

"It may be just a coincidence of timing, Captain. I say that because of the third substance involved."

"Third substance?" Kirk asked. "I thought you said you found only two."

"Only two foreign ones," McCoy corrected him. "Neither of which is fatal to humans by itself, or in combination with the other. However, the presence of this third substance, a perfectly natural one for humans, made the interaction between the other two much worse - and, ultimately, fatal to the Ensign."

"And what substance would that be?"

"Testosterone, Captain - or, should I say, extremely high levels of testosterone. Under normal circumstances, I believe the Ensign's reaction to this chemical mix would have been dire, but probably not fatal. However, considering the extremely stimulating company he was keeping at the time of his death..." McCoy trailed off.

Kirk glanced over at the Jheniffurian women and noted the flush on their cheeks, as if they had just been swiped with rouge.

"Understood, Doctor. Excellent work. You obviously went to a lot of effort - perhaps it's time for you to take a break now," Kirk suggested.

"I may just do that, Captain," McCoy replied. "It's been so busy around here since that last battle with the Klingons that I haven't had the chance to get much sleep. In fact, if these tests had taken much longer, I swear I would have had to keep my eyelids taped open just to get the job done."

Kirk chuckled. "Then don't let me keep you from your nap. I'll contact you if we need anything else. And thanks, Doctor. Kirk out."

Kirk closed his communicator and replaced it on his belt. Looking at his companions, he said, "Well, that's that. Now if we can only figure out how this 'hekim' got into the Ensign's body in the first place..."

TBC…