Archer was sitting on the edge of his bed, petting Porthos when Reed arrived. The beagle looked pretty comfortable, but Archer was restive; the hand petting the dog never settled for long on any one place.

"Malcolm," Archer began, "Tell me, how do you go about making decisions?"

"Sir?" Reed turned his head slightly, not really sure what Archer was getting at.

"You heard me. It's not a hard question," Archer said, and there was a distinct edge to his deceptively calm voice. The hand continued to move from one spot on the dog to another. Now the head, now the ear, now under the chin, now down the dog's back, now a foreleg, "How do you make decisions? The mundane kind, like we all make every day. Which juice we'll have with breakfast, what book to read a chapter of before bed, who we'll try to strike up a conversation with during our off hours..."

A thousand kinds of decision. And Archer wanted a simple answer to summarize the method for making all of them. What was he really trying to get at? Reed was sure this was one of his Important Lessons Disguised as Casual Talks. Archer had a fondness for them, but they always made Reed uncomfortable. His own father had made a habit of them, and often they had come right before Reed got in trouble for something. All too often, they ended with a belt, even if he hadn't actually done anything wrong. His inability to come up with the right answers was all too frequently sufficient. It made him too nervous to say anything now.

So he kept watching that hand petting Porthos, who lay beside Archer and gazed fixedly at Reed, like the dog knew something he didn't, and was waiting for him to figure it out.

Archer gave up waiting for Reed to gather his thoughts. He stood up from the bed, strolled over to his desk, turned on the monitor, stared at it a moment, then turned it off again. In the meantime, Porthos had hopped off Archer's bed and down onto his own pillow.

"We'll be reaching a new planet in just a few hours. A planet we've never been to before, but which holds enormous promise, not just to replenish our spice supply, but also to make First Contact with a new species. Probably the most important species we've ever met."

That seemed to be going a little far, though admittedly Reed hadn't bothered to look very deep into the available information about the spice world or the Dolizet. He'd been a little distracted.

Archer began to pace, though the room was too small to allow for much of that before he gave up and stopped in front of Reed. He looked his tactical officer up and down in silence, and Reed did his best to remind himself that this man was not his father, and didn't have a belt in any case. Reed glanced at him only sidelong. Looking at the Captain directly felt like it would provoke him, though Reed wasn't clear on what he'd done wrong, or why his captain should be upset with him.

But at the moment Archer was too outwardly calm, with the underlying frenetic energy of a racehorse, which gave the impression that he'd explode at any second.

"I'm going to need the support of the entire crew for this mission," Archer said slowly, "Especially my tactical officer if something should happen to go wrong. We don't really know anything about the Dolizet and, if they turn hostile, I'll be counting on you to help me deal with it."

Was Archer planning to go to war here? He appeared to be suggesting more than just turning tail and running if the Dolizet took a sudden dislike to them. That might be what he meant, but his tone implied that he'd need his tactical officer because he planned to go on the offensive.

How many times had Archer said this wasn't a warship, and that he didn't want to go into situations under the supposition that there would be a battle, because the expectation of conflict tended to make it arise where it otherwise might not have?

"So why am I hearing reports that my tactical officer is trying to conspire against me?" Archer didn't wait for an answer to that, which was good because Reed didn't have one. Instead, he turned and asked point blank, "Are you trying to incite a mutiny?"

"Mutiny?" Reed repeated in startled disbelief, finally looking directly at his captain in hopes of seeing some sign that the man was joking. Surely he had to be joking.

But Archer continued to scowl. He didn't look as if he were joking.

"No sir," Reed shook his head vehemently, "Of course not."

"Really? So… if not mutiny, just what did you think you were trying to do? You've been going around, implying that this shouldn't be our mission, that we're not only placing too high a value on the spice, but that it's actually some kind of mind altering poison. This in direct opposition to Phlox's reports. Now, last I checked, you don't have a medical degree. Do you, Malcolm?"

Archer was standing there, looking down at him, and Reed got the sense that there was no right answer. Other than Phlox and his own men in the Armory, Reed had barely talked to anyone, and he'd tried not to be too direct or obvious about his concerns when speaking to the latter.

But... Travis had also spoken with a few people, hadn't he? He'd asked an unspecified set of friends, likely posted throughout the ship. Probably not with any great degree of subtlety, since Travis didn't have any of that. And then he'd gone straight to Reed, something everyone knew about on account of it having been in the middle of the Mess Hall. The fact that Reed had passed out and been sent to Sick Bay probably made it the top story on the ship's grapevine. It was natural to conclude that Travis had been asking questions on Reed's behalf.

But what was Reed going to do? Claim Travis had been making inquiries on his own? For what purpose? Even assuming none of Archer's sources came from the Armory, the fact remained that Reed didn't feel right about this mission. If he said that, however, it would make his denial of any mutinous intentions sound like an outright lie. He could wind up in the Brig for that.

Hell, he could be court martialed for it.

The severity of his own position was uncomfortably clear. But he had little information on the other end of things. The Captain was acting oddly. The crew was unambiguously and unhesitatingly siding with him. But neither of those things was proof that there was any real danger in the spice or the planet it came from. Most of what Reed had was just bad feelings and vague but persistent suspicions.

Nothing that he could act on. Even if it had been, what was he going to do, fight the whole crew?

"No sir," Reed said quietly, staring ahead at nothing in particular.

"Then why are you fighting me, Malcolm?" Archer asked, his voice soft but the look in his eyes scathing, "Why can't you just get in line like everyone else?"

Reed had spent his whole life trying to fit in where other people thought he should, and failing miserably at it. Of all the things he'd learned, the thing he'd learned best was to stand in line, no matter how badly he was provoked into stepping out of it. The accusation stung, even though at the same time it delivered home the message that this was not his captain talking.

His father might have asked that question. His teachers at Star Fleet Academy might have. His first CO certainly would have. Harris wouldn't have even hesitated by making it a question. But Captain Archer wasn't like any of them. In fact, he was the opposite. Everything he'd ever said to Reed had been to try and force him to loosen up, right down to the insistence on calling the members of his command crew by their first names the vast majority of the time.

"With respect, sir," Reed began, flinching at the memory of what Archer had said about this particular habit of his, "I didn't realize I was doing anything of the kind."

"See," Archer said, stepping closer, until they were almost nose to nose, "That's where we get back to how you make your decisions. Because there's clearly something wrong with it. Because, somehow, even though you know what's at stake, you go off and you do these things."

Not sure where Archer was going with this now, Reed didn't answer.

"According to Phlox, you put yourself on starvation rations, and then volunteered for that mission, knowing you weren't at your best. And then, when you get back, you went off and ate something you're allergic to, collapsed in the middle of the Mess Hall, spent six hours unconscious in Sick Bay."

Reed bristled slightly at the breach of doctor-patient confidentiality, though he supposed that his failings, health-wise, weren't really a secret from Archer. After all, the Captain had to be able to make an informed decision about what sort of limitations he was going to be willing to put up with and work around from his crew, most particularly his Bridge officers. Reed had originally been slated to be the second officer of Enterprise, before Subcommander T'Pol had invited herself along, and before they had fully realized how busy Engineering kept Commander Tucker. Archer needed to know what to expect from him, even on the very personal level of his medical history. Still, it surprised him that Phlox would have so immediately and freely given Archer a full medical report.

Almost more than that, the reversal from Phlox's earlier claimed understanding of why Reed sometimes went off food partially or entirely came as something of a surprise. He wondered if Phlox had changed his mind about that, or if Archer had misinterpreted it. Or, worst of all, Phlox had merely said all that to humor Reed without believing a word of it. He couldn't worry about it now, because Archer was still going on.

"What if you'd collapsed down on that planet? You could have gotten someone killed down there. You have the training to know that, even if you weren't smart enough to figure it out by yourself. It's bad enough that you do damage to yourself, but to endanger members of my crew?"

Reed scrambled for an answer. Something, anything he could say to appease his captain. At the same time, he was trying to find his balance in this conversation. He'd never been very good at predicting what Archer would say or do, or how he would react to things, but right now he was beginning to feel like he was conversing with a stranger, one who looked like his captain, moved like his captain and even sounded like his captain. Yet though he heard the voice of his captain, and the words sounded right, he was increasingly of the mind that he didn't know this man at all.

"I'm sorry, sir," Reed said with a touch of desperation, "It won't happen again."

Archer nodded slowly, backing up just enough for breathing space, "I wonder what that means in whatever reality you think you're living in. Because in mine, it certainly doesn't mean self-poisoning."

"That was an accident," Reed protested, despite every instinct screaming at him to just shut the hell up and get out as soon as Archer would allow it, "I didn't realize-"

"Just what I need!" Archer practically yelled, fury coming off him in waves now, "A tactical officer whose favorite hobby is not noticing things!"

Feeling the man was turning dangerous, Reed wanted to back up, put more space between him and Archer, but in truth there was nowhere to go, and he knew Archer would merely close the distance again anyway. He tried to tell himself that Archer had no intention of striking him here and now, but some part of him just didn't believe it, was certain that a blow was imminent, and all he could do was try to forestall it with whatever words he could come up with. Even if it wasn't true, he had to tell Archer what the man wanted to hear and hope it was enough.

"I have no excuse, sir."

"Of course you don't," Archer spat, but his anger seemed ebb, "You're like a cat, Malcolm."

"What?" now he was really lost.

"A cat doesn't answer to anybody. Makes apologies for nothing. Is so damned full of itself it'll climb up onto a shelf and knock an antique vase to a hard wood floor, just to watch it fall and break, and then walk away like it had nothing to do with it, even though you saw it happen," he'd been walking away as he spoke, but now turned back to Reed, "But you know the worst thing about cats?"

"I'm afraid I've never been much for pets, sir," Reed said.

He was also fairly certain that he had just apologized a few sentences ago, and had been in the process of doing it again when Archer lost his temper. But those points seemed unlikely to be met with anything other than further contempt and outrage. This wasn't the first time Reed had been faced with a storm of unreasoning fury, and he knew that there was nothing much he could do but try to weather it.

"Cats don't care about anyone but themselves," Archer said.

"Captain-" Reed began, hurt by that insinuation almost as much as he was by the headache that still had firm hold of him. But Archer didn't let him finish.

"You're dismissed."

"But sir-"

"I said: dismissed!"

"Yes sir."

Reed left, a cold knot of dread in his stomach. Numbly, he made the journey back to his own quarters. He passed people without seeing them. He probably wouldn't have noticed if he'd bumped into them.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, he made it back to his quarters. But he was too agitated to return to bed now, so instead he sat at his desk and stared at his reflection in the darkened monitor. He tried to breathe evenly, to push back the panic that had started to rise while Archer was talking.

He had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling. And it had everything to do with that damned spice. Something was going to go very badly once they got to that planet, he could feel it. And it wasn't just his unnaturally honed pessimism telling him that. He was now virtually certain that Dr. Phlox had lied to him. The spice was affecting them.

All of them.