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Chapter 7: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier…Spy?

"There is no record of anyone turning it on manually." T'Pol stood at the processing center's main computer console, scanner in hand. Next to her, Trip sat on the catwalk and removed his boots, dangling his feet over the side.

"Well I guess we would've noticed if somebody had," he said tiredly.

"Not necessarily. It is possible that someone could have been operating it remotely from another location, but that does not appear to be the case." Trip didn't say anything to this, just rested his head against the handrail. T'Pol stopped and looked down at him. "You should return to the ship. We have been here for seven hours. You should rest."

Trip waved it off. "We're only due to be down here for another hour or so anyway. I'm fine." He came back to the problem at hand. "So if nobody turned it on, how did it get on?"

The Vulcan pressed several buttons and consulted her scanner once more. She shook her head. "There is no logical explanation. The machine's software simply switched it on. Specifically, it was given the command to move from "idle" to "in use." The request was generated spontaneously within the program."

"A virus of some sort?"

"Possibly. It seems likely that this equipment is still suffering from the effects of the saboteur."

"And we still have no idea who that might be."

T'Pol knelt down close to Trip and lowered her voice. "There is one person we have not yet considered in that role." Trip turned to her, his face inches from her own. "Kovar."

"Kovar? The guy just saved my life, T'Pol."

"While that is certainly an action that has merit, it should not exclude him from our inquiries."

"Has merit, T'Pol?" Trip looked somewhat hurt by this.

She ignored this. Human males could be such children sometimes. "Kovar is the only one on the station with unlimited access to all the affected systems and machinery."

"What's his motive, then? He is Vulcan—he'd be no more likely to sabotage the station than V'Ret. Vulcans don't do things like that—it's become too uncontrolled."

"Kovar is not like V'Ret," T'Pol was adamant. "I do not trust him."

Trip jutted his chin out at her, a typical sign of human stubbornness. "Well I do. He's innocent until proven guilty."

Below then Kovar entered the processing center carrying a pair of black boots. "I believe these will fit you, Commander," he called.

Trip and T'Pol looked at him, then back at one another. T'Pol stood and descended the stairs of the catwalk. "I have completed my scans in this area. I will move to the common room and the kitchen next," she stated as she passed Kovar.

Trip watched her go and mentally kicked himself. How had that happened? She had saved his life too, and he repaid her by telling her that her comment—her perfectly reasonable comment, his conscience added unhelpfully—was wrong. He sighed. No matter what their species, women were a complete mystery to him.

While the Commander worried that the Science Officer was leaving because of his comment, T'Pol's mind was otherwise occupied. Trip was an intelligent man so she had no doubt that he would eventually see the sense in her position on Kovar. No, something other than her fledgling relationship with Trip was bothering her.

Both Commander Tucker and Kovar had all but dismissed both Vulcans from their line of questioning because the sabotage was too emotional, too uncontrolled, and appeared to be personally motivated. Vulcans, both men assumed, would be incapable of such acts.

But T'Pol could think of things that might make a Vulcan lose his—or her—control. She just wasn't ready to talk about this with Trip yet. To do her duty properly, though, she could not ignore the possibility that it was V'Ret or Kovar, even if they were Vulcan. And given a choice which of her species it might be, Kovar was the one she had misgivings about.

While Commander Tucker might not agree with her assessment of Kovar, T'Pol would have been grateful to know that Lt. Reed not only shared her opinion, he was already acting on it.

There was something about Kovar's records that just didn't add up. He'd been trained at the Vulcan Science Academy and had served as an environmental specialist aboard two Vulcan ships before being transferred to the Shomar Project. There just wasn't enough there for a 68 year-old engineer. For a project of this importance Vulcan would not have sent a merely mediocre engineer, not while they sent the jewel of their geological crown, V'Ret. No, something was missing from Kovar's files, and Malcolm was going to find out what.

He had already searched all the records available from Kovar's two ships—there was absolutely nothing of interest there. For all that he was mentioned—twice, total—he may as well have not even been onboard. Maybe he wasn't, Malcolm's more paranoid side whispered.

He activated his personal viewscreen and punched in his security clearance. Reluctantly he directed the computer to send a communication to an address he had hoped would be behind him forever. He waited impatiently for the computer to connect, but the computer just beeped at him and displayed a testy message.

"No longer a valid location code…" he read off the screen. "What the…?" What was going on? He knew the answer, of course, even before the question had formed on his lips. Harris had moved shop. Damned inconvenient of him.

What now? Malcolm was not the sort to give up easily. He reached for the comm. panel.

"Lt. Reed to Ensign Sato."

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but Hoshi was feeling just fine at the moment. After Malcolm had asked—almost ordered, really—her to find a person that didn't exist at an address that wasn't a real place (at least according to every directory she had consulted), she had insisted on staying while he put the communication through. The tactical officer hadn't complained, just got that tight-lipped "I'm thinking it through" look for a moment and nodded.

Malcolm typed in the correct location code and motioned for Hoshi to step out of the viewscreen's visual range. As she did so the screen beeped and the image of a very pretty dark-skinned woman appeared.

"Well, well," the image said in an amused voice. "Didn't think I'd be getting any calls from you again. Not after what you told Harris last time you spoke. Or should I say, last time you hung up on him."

Reed smiled thinly. "Hello, Mel."

"So have you called to kiss and make up?"

In his peripheral vision Malcolm could see Hoshi's eyebrows shoot up. She was practically dancing just out of the viewer's visual range, trying to get a glimpse of the caller—god only knew what she must think of him now.

"No, I haven't," he told Mel hastily, before she could continue down that path. "What I told him last time still stands—I'm not working for him. In fact, if you plan on telling him I've called, we can end this conversation right now." He reached out a hand to terminate the link.

"Wait, wait. So touchy in your old age, Mal. So you didn't call for Harris—but you did call for something." Mel leaned forward, her face filling the screen. "What do you want?"

Malcolm's hand hovered over the termination switch for a second before he pulled it back a fraction and rested his wrist on the smooth metal surface of his desk. "I'm investigating an incident at the Shomar Mining Project on Velat 4."

"Heard about it. What's that got to do with me?"

"One of the SMP team members—I can't find any information on him. A Vulcan by the name of Kovar. His file is practically barren and I just don't buy it. He's hiding something."

"Going with those gut feelings again, huh? Careful—remember what happened in Marseille." Mel's voice was laughing but her face had already turned away from the screen to a bank of computers behind her. "Let's see what we've got…"

Malcolm tapped his fingers on the table as he waited for his friend to finish crunching data. Friend—could he call her that? In Mel's business, it was so hard to know who one's friend's were. Not like on Enterprise. He looked at Hoshi, her face pinched and her fingers practically white as she gripped a PADD and awaited the news.

"Okay, here we go. Got a hit." Mel skimmed through a screenful of data one of the computer's had provided. "Oh…"

"What?" Malcolm wanted to know.

"Your Vulcan…well, I can see why his record was empty. Sending you the data now."

The screen split itself in two, allowing data to stream in under Mel's image. He began to read furiously, his brow furrowed with concern. "Well," Mel sighed, "I guess you just love me for my data. Typical."

"What? Oh…thank you Mel. I owe you one."

"Oh no, consider us even."

Malcolm cocked his head at her, confused.

"When you hung up on Harris…I've never seen him so angry before." She raised her eyebrows and a slow smile, dreamy smile snuck across her face. "It was wonderful!" With that the upper half of the screen turned black before Mel's data took over the entire viewing surface.

"Marseille?" Hoshi asked, coming around behind Malcolm and leaning on the back of his chair. "Malcolm, who was that woman? Who are you?"

Lt. Reed did not respond, simply stared at the file displayed before him. Hoshi took note and turned her attention to it. Her questions about Malcolm's past were instantly forgotten.

"That little bastard!" Malcolm breathed. "Kovar was at P'Jem."