Four and a half hours later, Tony had a whole new understanding of completely and accurately. He thanked Ambassador Sarek for his assistance and watched the man leave. As the door slid shut, he caught a glimpse of a man in a red-shirted uniform. His escort, presumably.
Only he wasn't ready to go anywhere just yet. Right now, he planned to review his notes from the interview he'd just finished - the notes that he'd been typing so quickly he hadn't really had the time to process what they meant.
Now, though - now he could read and consolidate them and hopefully have a better understanding of the events of the night in question.
Sarek himself represented Vulcan. No one else had come with him - his wife had died a few years before, and he had already conferred with his government on the issue, so there was no need for an aide. He expected to spend some time with his son, Spock, while aboard the Enterprise.
Vulcan would vote to admit Coridan to the Federation, as Coridan needed protection from illegal mining operations and the Federation would gain access to dilithium more cheaply as a result of Coridan's admittance.
To Sarek's right at the table that night, and all during the negotiations, sat Gav, the Tellarite ambassador who had been poisoned. Tellarites had an unfortunate resemblance to Terran pigs and a decided love of argument and blunt speech.
Sarek readily admitted that Gav had confronted him several times to ask about Vulcan's position. "I told him it would be known at the vote. He was not pleased with that answer, but it was the only one I would give."
Although nobody's position was official until the vote was held, Sarek believed Tellar would not vote to admit Coridan to the Federation. Tony had the impression - though he couldn't say why he had it - that Tellar might be behind some of those illegal mining operations on Coridan.
Technically, Coridan was a group of inhabited worlds. Two of them sent ambassadors: Mahesharav Bimaderi from Coridan Prime, and Varaza Makul from Coridan III, also called Desotriana. Bimaderi had sat to Gav's right, and Makul to Bimaderi's.
Tony called up a blank screen on the PADD and drew a circle to represent the table, adding the names as he went around.
Coridan - the system, not just one world - had suffered from a centuries-long civil war, and that was likely what allowed illegal mining operations to flourish, according to Sarek.
Both Bimaderi and Makul had been courteous, as far as Sarek knew.
"How badly do they want to join the Federation?" Tony asked.
Sarek raised an eyebrow. "I have no way of estimating."
"Sure you do," Tony countered. "Are they going around asking for votes? Begging?"
Sarek contemplated that for a moment before saying, "If you are asking whether they would kill someone who would vote against their joining the Federation, I doubt that. Tellar is but one vote among many."
"Many," Tony said. "There were eight of you at the table. Is that many?"
"One hundred and fourteen delegates are attending the conference," Sarek replied. "Thirty-two of them are ambassadors. That is many."
Tony couldn't argue that, so they moved on.
To Makul's right sat the Ithemite, Karash. He'd been fairly quiet throughout the negotiations, and Sarek refused to speculate what Ithem's vote on the question would be.
To Karash's right sat Tapani, the Acamarian ambassador. Acamar was strongly in favor of admitting Coridan to the Federation, and had been one of the driving forces behind the current conference. Tapani herself, however, affected a neutral stance, but Sarek had no doubt she would vote in favor.
At Tapani's right sat Ambassador Shras of Andoria. Andoria had a long history of conflicts with Vulcan, though there had been very few since the founding of the Federation. Despite their conflicts, Sarek believed Andoria would vote to admit Coridan.
The final member at the table - to Sarek's left and Shras' right - was Ambassador Abra Daoud of Earth. Chosen as the conference moderator by lot, she would not cast a vote on the question of Coridan's admission.
Tony blinked at that. "Seems kind of strange that a founding member wouldn't have a vote on whether to admit another member."
"It was arranged at the founding of the Federation," Sarek said, "that on any membership question, one of the four original members would remain neutral. At first, this was to avoid ties in the voting. Later, it became tradition."
Tony suspected Sarek disapproved of that tradition but would never say so aloud. "And the neutral party is chosen by lot?"
"Unless a member volunteers. Tellar has never volunteered. Vulcan has volunteered many times in the past. Andoria and Earth volunteer occasionally. For this conference, however, we drew lots."
"Any particular reason?"
"It is logical to conclude that all four have strong views on the topic, whichever side of the issue they are on."
Tony didn't remind the man that most people weren't logical. Instead, he asked, "How has Ambassador Daoud been performing as moderator?"
"I have no complaints," Sarek said. "She has served as ambassador with competence, if not distinction, for seventeen point three years."
"What would be cause for you to have complaints?" Tony asked. Just because Kirk trusted Sarek for a complete account didn't mean he was going to trust the man blindly.
"Dereliction of duty," Sarek replied immediately. "Showing a harmful degree of illogical bias."
Tony's eyebrows flew up.
Sarek must be used to dealing with humans and their expressions because he continued, "Humans, and most other species, are collectively illogical. Once one determines the…average, or perhaps baseline, level of illogicality for a species, one knows how to deal with most members of that species. If a particular member shows greater illogicality than average, that is illogical bias. Much of the time, such bias is relatively harmless. Sometimes, it is not."
Though he was fairly certain Sarek hadn't intended it, Tony felt like a particularly dim student. He cleared his throat before asking, "Did any of the delegates show a harmful degree of illogical bias?"
Sarek appeared to consider that question before finally saying, "Nothing I would consider harmful, no. Tempers occasionally flared, but that is to be expected."
"Right." Tony took a long swallow from the glass of water he'd requested during their discussion. Sarek had done most of the talking, but that didn't mean Tony didn't get thirsty, too. Setting the glass aside, he focused on Sarek once more. "Now that I have an overview of the people and the cultures involved - and I realize it is just an overview - would you explain how the day progressed, leading up to Ambassador Gav's death?"
For the next twenty minutes, Sarek described the events of the day - "I cannot discuss ongoing negotiations in any detail. However-" - and Tony took copious notes.
When Sarek finally concluded with, "The afternoon passed much the same, before we broke for dinner. We had not intended to resume discussions after dinner, but Ambassador Daoud said she'd spoken with several delegates and believed a brief session would be of some use. So we returned here."
"Returned here," Tony repeated, frowning. "You didn't have dinner here?"
"We did," Sarek replied. "However, we departed for an hour before the meal - allowing us time to handle whatever personal matters may have arisen during the day, or simply to meditate and refresh ourselves."
Tony nodded an acknowledgment to that, and before he could speak, Sarek spoke once more.
"If you have no more questions at the moment," Sarek said, "I had arranged to meet my son for dinner tonight."
"Oh!" Tony started, surprised at how late it had apparently become. He glanced at his watch - only to realize it was of no use to him here. Except, he noted idly, to tell him it had been a little over seven hours since he'd opened his door to Blue Eyes and Eyebrows.
"My apologies, Ambassador," he said. "I hadn't realized it had gotten so late. Please don't let me keep you any longer."
Sarek rose to his feet. "If you require any further assistance, I will be available."
Tony offered him a nod of thanks and Sarek left the room. Yes, the red-shirted guard was still there - or it might've been a different one than before. Still, the message was clear, and Tony didn't blame Kirk for insisting on an escort. If he weren't an NCIS agent, it would be no different aboard an aircraft carrier.
As the door slid shut behind Sarek, Tony stood and stretched his arms over his head, then twisted his torso back and forth, releasing tension built up both from the investigation and from sitting too long in one position.
His stomach growled a little, reminding him that he, too, should find some dinner. He would, eventually. This wasn't the longest he'd gone without eating, especially since he'd joined NCIS, and given that he was alone for the moment, he decided investigating his surroundings a little more thoroughly would not be amiss.
He crossed the room to the nearest wall that wasn't the door - no sense triggering whatever sensor opened them before he'd even begun his investigation, obviously - and made a slow circuit of the room, examining the walls and the ceiling and especially where they joined. Kirk had said there were no cameras on the meeting, but it never hurt to double-check.
Halfway round the room, Tony saw a minute irregularity in the joining. Pinhole camera? Or whatever the current equivalent is?
Turning around, he saw that the vantage point would cover the entire room, if it were a wide-enough-angle lens. One more camera on a perpendicular wall would serve as a backup and provide a different angle to view the room.
Sure enough, midway along the next wall, he found a similar recess.
Other than that, the walls were featureless. He could barely see the outline of the door, in fact, and he gave silent credit to the ship's designer and builders for excellent craftsmanship.
The door slid open just as he approached it, and Kirk strode into the room.
"You planned that," Tony said.
"Of course," Kirk replied with a grin that made Tony suspect the man only lacked bedtime companionship if he wanted to be alone. "Hungry?"
Tony shrugged. "A bit."
"This way, then," Kirk said and gestured him into the corridor. The red-shirted guard had disappeared.
"Risky," Tony observed as he fell into step with Kirk.
"What?"
"The captain escorting an unknown guest without guard. I could knock you out and take over the ship, or something."
Kirk chuckled. "Well, you could try, sure. But just because we're not escorted doesn't mean we're not observed. Our chief of security is thorough."
"Thorough enough that you're certain there's no footage from either of the cameras in the room?"
Kirk sobered immediately. "It was the first thing we checked. The cameras in the room were shut off an hour before negotiations began and only turned on after the ambassador died."
"I really want to have a forensic computer scientist confirm that," Tony said.
"Spock did."
"He's a forensic computer scientist?" Tony didn't try to keep the disbelief from his question.
"Not specifically, but he's our chief science officer," Kirk explained, then frowned. "Okay, that doesn't exactly make sense to you, does it?"
"It makes me think that either he does weird experiments with chemicals and explody things in a lab somewhere, or he runs endless simulations on the computer trying to figure out the origin of the universe."
"More the second than the first - but only in his spare time. Enterprise is an exploratory vessel as much as she is a military one. Spock oversees all our research and is a gifted software engineer, among other things."
Tony looked at him dubiously. "It takes time to become proficient in any one of those disciplines, let alone - what? - five? Six?"
"He's Vulcan. They're…I don't want to say smarter than humans, necessarily, but their brains are different than ours, and on the whole they are scarily intelligent. What Spock does - it's not unusual at all. For a Vulcan."
"Huh." Tony filed that away, along with a mental note to review biological information on all the races and species he'd be interviewing tomorrow.
Kirk paused at a door where a red-uniformed woman stood - though it was really hard to think of a mini-skirted dress as a uniform.
"Your quarters," Kirk said. "Ensign Petrova has the night shift as your escort."
Tony scoffed. "Like I'll even be able to open the door from the inside."
"Of course you will," Kirk said. "You're not a prisoner."
"I really am," Tony corrected him. "No way to get off the ship, after all."
Kirk frowned. "It's not intentional-"
Tony waved that away. "I know, and I understood what I was doing when I came with you. Besides - what I've seen of your ship is pretty cool. I don't mind being here."
In some ways - in a lot of ways, if he were honest with himself - he liked it better than he did NCIS. That was a dangerous thought, so he shoved it ruthlessly down.
Kirk looked surprised, then pleased. "Right. Let me show you how things work."
A five-minute explanation of replicators, sonic showers, and clothes refreshers later, Kirk left him alone.
Tony sighed and slipped out of his jacket and boots. He considered asking the replicator for a beer but thought better of it. One beer wouldn't impair him, but even if Dr. McCoy had healed his lungs, he still had various medications that didn't pair well with alcohol running through his system.
The beer might have to wait, but maybe the replicator could give him steak and lobster.