A great big thank you to my reviewers! You make my day.

§ 5 §

"Who should return?" Malcolm asked in a cutting voice. "Who is being awaited? There's nothing to say that that person is you, Captain."

From what felt like a throne – Trip's chair – Archer watched his Security Officer cross his arms over his chest, as if to close the discussion.

"Besides, who the hell are they?" Trip wondered, leaning with his back against the wall.

His arms were also crossed over his chest, but not quite as if he was trying to squeeze out each and every molecule of air between them, like Malcolm's.

"And return where?" Hoshi put in. "They didn't give any coordinates."

Even T'Pol crossed her arms, managing to turn the simple gesture into something exotic.

"Ensign," she said, "if the message is for the Captain, it is logical to assume the where is the planet we are orbiting, at the coordinates where he and Lieutenant Reed were transported two days ago."

Malcolm's expression turned to outrage. "I can't believe you are saying that, Subcommander!" he shot back. "We don't know the message is for the Captain, and we can all see what good it does to answer all the bloody signals we happen to pick up!"

T'Pol raised her eyebrows, unruffled. "I simply made a hypothesis, Lieutenant, and a logical deduction. I did not say the message was for the Captain."

"You seemed to imply it."

"That is an incorrect assumption."

At which Trip felt the need to butt in, "And to assume makes an ass of you and me."

Porthos was getting agitated, and Archer had just about had enough of seeing his officers bicker like parents over a child. He may be the right size, but he wasn't a child, for heaven's sake.

"Will you be quiet, all of you?" he exploded. Silence fell like a guillotine. He waited a few seconds for impact – in his new form he needed any help he could get in that department – then took a deep breath. "I don't care who is who and where is where," he said firmly. "I have decided I'm going back, and that is that."

All eyes converged on him, with various degrees of unease and bewilderment; then Trip decided to put on his charming smile and utter one of his defusing comments. "Is there an echo in the room?" he quipped.

It won him an incinerating look from Malcolm, but Archer, unexpectedly, felt a chuckle bubble up. What the hell. He was so desperate he was almost past the point of worrying. He might still end up disappearing from the starship Enterprise, but he was sure as hell going to try to do something about it, and here was the first clue that something, maybe, could be done about it.

"I feel obliged to remind you that Starfleet regulations forbid a captain to leave the ship unaccompanied," T'Pol said.

At which Malcolm must have felt called into question. "Captain," he began, looking ready for battle.

Archer didn't want to get into an argument. "Dismissed, all of you," he tersely ordered, cutting him off.

The guillotine slammed down again and silence reigned for a few seconds. Trip was the first to break it.

"Er… these are my quarters, Capt'n," he reminded him hesitantly.

Great.

Before anyone picked him up again, Archer let himself slip off the chair. "T'Pol, get the Quartermaster to work faster," he muttered irritably, gathering his robe so he wouldn't lose whatever was left of his dignity by tripping over it. "The man doesn't have to do a perfect job, for heaven's sake. I can live without piping around my shoulders or fifteen pockets on each limb."

Short as he was, he couldn't even get the satisfaction of storming out. Good thing the dog following him was a beagle and not a Great Dane.

"May I have a word with you, Subcommander?"

T'Pol thought Lieutenant Reed had walked her to her quarters out of courtesy, but now, as she stopped in front of her door, saw that she had made a wrong assumption. Commander Tucker's words about the lack of cleverness in those who were quick to assume things still rang in her ears, making her eyebrows lift. Reed immediately blanched and took a step back, as if hit by weapons' fire.

"Ah – perhaps this can wait until tomorrow," he mumbled.

He was suddenly hesitant, almost afraid. That wasn't altogether foreign to him and had always intrigued her, because it contrasted so deeply with the other side of his character, the one that was courageous and self-assured. "It is fine," T'Pol said, triggering the door open. "You may come in."

"You must be tired," Reed said, back-pedalling some more. "You can drop in the Armoury tom-"

"Lieutenant," T'Pol interrupted, "something is clearly on your mind. It is best you unburden yourself now." She went inside and turned. Reed followed slowly, as if entering a mine field, casting wary looks around. T'Pol resisted the illogical urge to do the same.

"I… don't think it's appropriate for me to…" Reed stretched his neck. "Not after… you know… that time."

It took T'Pol a moment to decipher the words. "If you are referring to the time the ship was taken over by those Wisps, Lieutenant, I bear no resentment," she reassured him. "That time you were not yourself."

Reed nodded, but his discomfort didn't ease, and T'Pol wondered for the first time what were the man's most secret feelings about what that Wisp had done while in control of his body. Perhaps it was safer not to know.

"What did you want to discuss, Lieutenant?" she prompted.

"The Captain's wish to return to that planet," he replied, this time without hesitation. "That is the stupidest idea I've heard in a long time."

His self-confident side had definitely taken over again. Indeed, it seemed safe to assume, now, that Lieutenant Reed was what Commander Tucker called "pissed-off." T'Pol blinked, so as to centre herself against the onslaught of such intense feelings. "As I reminded the Captain, Starfleet regulations forbid a Starfleet captain to leave the ship unaccompanied. I will insist you should accompany him."

"A lot of good that did the first time," Reed muttered, forgetting she had Vulcan hearing.

"This is not the time to have self doubts, Lieutenant." She saw a flash of annoyance in his grey eyes as he realised he'd been overheard, but it was gone as quickly as it had come.

"And what exactly is the Captain going to wear, for one?" he retorted in a clipped accent. "We can't downsize an EV suit, and they don't come in children's sizes."

T'Pol heaved another, this time inner, sigh. Reed could be difficult when he set his mind to it. "As you may remember, on your first away mission the use of EV suits was only a precaution. The planet's atmosphere becomes poisonous to human physiology only after many hours of exposure," she countered calmly.

"But look what happened! And we still don't know how or why!" Reed narrowed his eyes dangerously. "You always point out how illogical we Humans are. So tell me: where is the logic in going back down there?"

He had a point. Or did he? T'Pol was beginning to feel a bit confused. With the pending crisis, she had not taken the time to meditate. "Because we have not found what caused the Captain's molecules to shrink, Lieutenant, it may well be that our only answer is indeed on the planet," she reasoned. "I recommend we keep an open mind." Reed made to reply to that, but she anticipated him. "We shall reconvene at o-eight-hundred in the situation room and discuss this with all the senior staff."

As a dismissal, it was a bit abrupt. Reed looked hard pressed keeping his mouth shut. Eventually, though, his strong discipline had the better of him, and with a firm, military nod he turned to leave, looking just as frustrated as when he'd come in.

Trip had not been able to go back to sleep after his quarters had emptied. It had only been about three hours before his alarm was set to go off, anyway, so he'd showered and got himself a cup of coffee before returning to his room and burying himself in the malfunctions report. There was always something to fix, and though the Captain's predicament had him quite worried, he could not forget his Chief Engineer's duties.

Four hours later he was still thinking about who should be the poor devil he'd assign to solving the problem that was ailing Chef's processor – the man became rather intractable when his galley wasn't running at 100 percent efficiency – when the turbolift deposited him on the Bridge. For once he wasn't the last to get to the senior staff's meeting, he thought in relief, noticing that Archer wasn't there yet.

"Mornin' everyone," he said, running down the few steps that led from the Bridge to the Situation Room.

Various greetings bounced back to him. Even Phlox was there, he saw, although the dark and pensive man in a corner of the situation table was hardly recognisable as their jovial CMO. Trip's heart sank. He had secretly hoped Phlox would eventually come up with something that would dispel this nightmare, but it didn't look like it was the case.

Malcolm, taut as a violin string, looked at the clock. What with his inborn precision and the fact that he was always earlier than he was due to arrive anywhere, the man usually started to fidget with the very first second of delay.

T'Pol was absorbed in something on a padd. Trip could not read her expression; but then, that was nothing new. Hoshi looked totally knackered. There were dark smudges under her eyes; it was clear she hadn't got much sleep in the past couple of days. Travis looked a bit lost. The young man must be feeling a bit out of place here, given that his piloting skills were not needed at the moment.

"Any news of the Capt'n?" Trip enquired, approaching the group.

Gazes crossed, but no one answered. T'Pol put down her padd. "It is likely his delay is caused by his new dimensions, and a miscalculation of the time it takes him to reach the Bridge at his reduced velocity. If his lower limbs have shortened by seventy percent, it would-"

"Thank you, T'Pol," Trip cut her off with a grimace, mindless of the fact that she was his superior.

"I went to his quarters before he had breakfast," Phlox said, "to take another blood sample."

"And?" Trip prompted, hoping against all hope he'd got the wrong impression, and the Doc had some reassuring news.

"Are you enquiring after the Captain or after my findings, Commander?" Phlox stalled. But then he didn't wait for Trip's reply and went on, "His molecules have gone crazy and, for the life of me, I can't explain it. I've checked the Interspecies Medical Exchange database, but found nothing that could help me." He sighed. "As for the rest, I found the Captain in good-enough spirits, considering." His voice almost cracked as he informed them, "When I left he measured twenty-two centimetres."

"What?" Trip cried out. "That's impossible! At three-something this morning he was a lot taller than that!"

"I wouldn't use tall and its comparative right now, Commander," Malcolm said darkly. He checked the time again. "I think we should page him," he added, tension exuding from every pore. "He might need help to get around the ship."

"Agreed." Even T'Pol's voice was slightly veiled with emotion. She proceeded to the nearest comm. link. "T'Pol to Captain Archer." Her call went unanswered, and she turned to the situation table. "Lieutenant, verify the Captain's whereabouts with internal sensors."

A minute later, Malcolm lifted stormy eyes. "I cannot find his biosigns on board."

"The computer might not recognise them," Hoshi put in feebly.

"Not possible," Phlox said with a frown. "His biosigns wouldn't have changed, just weakened maybe. Give the sensors a bit more time."

That was when the turbolift opened again. Everybody turned expectantly, but a couple of seconds later it was Müller, Reed's Second, who walked into their line of sight. He stopped dead in his tracks, transfixed by five pair of eyes.

"Aren't you late for your shift, Ensign?" Malcolm asked him with narrowed eyes. His gaze ran to the tactical station, where a young crewman sat as rigid as rock. "You should have relieved Crewman Lang ten minutes ago."

Müller snapped to attention. "Aye, Sir. I'm sorry, Sir," he replied in crisp military fashion. "The Captain summoned me."

"Where is the Captain, Ensign?" T'Pol took over.

Müller's face turned a shade paler while his eyes drifted to the Vulcan Officer. "He…"

His Adam's apple bobbed up and down and Trip's stomach flipped.

"He asked me to transport him down to the planet, Ma'am. I thought you knew," Bernard finally croaked out.

TBC

Ah - Sorry STReader... another volley cliffhanger!