"Archer."

"Captain. Please will you join me in my quarters as a matter of urgency – I require your assistance."

To do him justice, he did not waste time in asking for explanations. With a terse, "I'll be there," he closed the comm link.

When the buzzer sounded from outside, she did not immediately admit him. Instead she went out into the corridor with him, closing the door behind her before he could look in.

A glance assured her that the corridor was empty; they could speak without being overheard.

"Sir," she said without preamble, "before I allow you inside my quarters, I must ask for your promise that anything you see, or anything that happens there, will remain totally confidential between the two of us."

His eyebrows rose. She was pleased that he took time for thought; it was, after all, a grave thing to promise, and if he did so he would keep his word.

"I guess if you think it's necessary, I can go along with that," he replied finally. "Subject to my responsibilities to Starfleet and the ship, of course."

T'Pol paused at that. "You may feel that there may be … an area of conflict with the former," she admitted. "But I will guarantee that there is no danger to the ship."

He hesitated for a while longer, studying her. As the captain of a starship, responsible to the hierarchy who had invested him with that authority, he could not and should not lightly embrace the concept of possibly being asked to act contrary to their interest. Nevertheless, it seemed that the mutual trust that their travels together had built up was enough to bring his slow nod of acceptance.

She triggered the door control.

He followed her in.

Presumably he was expecting to see something out of the ordinary, but nevertheless he came to an abrupt halt when he saw Lieutenant Reed lying naked on the floor, covered only by a blanket.

"Malcolm?" In a moment he was crouching beside the unconscious officer, touching his face gently. "T'Pol – what's happened to him? Have you called Phlox?"

"For the present, Captain, it is unnecessary," she replied, kneeling beside him. "I did this to Mister Reed." She saw his shocked expression, and went on swiftly, "We have been attempting to deal with his conditioning, and unfortunately he became distressed – so distressed that I was unable to wake him from the induced hallucination, and he was in danger of sustaining long-term neurological damage. I therefore prevented that from happening."

"So is there anything I can do to help?"

She sighed. This was going to be extremely difficult to explain; he would probably want to know so much more than she had actually found out. "I have discovered the method by which Section 31 conditioned him to obedience to their commands."

"You have?" He visibly braced himself.

"I am as yet unable to determine exactly where or how this was carried out," the Vulcan continued, "but he appears to have been subjected to the delusion that he was an animal – a canine of some kind, I believe. He was tortured and starved. Eventually he was forced to the understanding that the only way to survive was to surrender his will to that of a superior. In essence, obedience and survival became inextricably interdependent in his mind. To disobey was to die."

"He still can disobey," Archer argued. "He took part in that mutiny against me in the Expanse."

"He obeyed you long past the stage of reasonable co-operation," she said simply. "In the end, only the clear evidence that the survival of both himself and the ship was now in extreme jeopardy enabled him to act. Had he been uninfluenced by the Section's conditioning, matters would never have reached that stage. You should have been stopped long before that. The evidence was there in plain view that you were not functioning properly."

Illogically, he flushed. They both knew that his behavior had been heavily influenced by the hormones secreted by the Xindi Insectoids to promote nurturing responses towards the hatchlings in the nursery Enterprise had found, but even though with his reasoning mind he could absolve himself of guilt for the way he'd endangered both his ship and his mission, an irrational guilt still lingered on that score.

Partly, perhaps, to deflect his thoughts from memories that must still be painful to him even now, he looked down again at his unconscious tactical officer. "How could they do that to him?"

"Because it worked," she answered, her voice flat and hard. "And that is the sole criterion upon which any covert operations organization operates. The welfare of their personnel is a very secondary consideration. It was traumatic to him, and must have been extremely dangerous; I gained access to his memories of it. But it must have some benefit to the Section that outweighs the risk."

The lieutenant was recovering from his induced unconsciousness. A frown wrinkled his forehead, and he whimpered low in his throat.

"They should be prosecuted," the captain said, his own voice almost vibrating with anger. "Perhaps he'll agree to give a statement, and with your corroboration–"

"It would never reach a tribunal," she told him with certainty. "There is far too much at stake for that. He told me himself that if his superiors learned that Phlox had any knowledge of what had been done to him, the doctor would not survive. I imagine the same would apply to anyone else they suspected of an intention to bring them to justice. You included." She did not trouble to include herself; that was a foregone conclusion.

"Well. That's something that can wait." His grim tone promised that it wouldn't be forever. "As for Malcolm here… he'll be okay when he wakes up, won't he?"

Heavy-hearted with the knowledge of her own guilt in the matter, she shook her head, and explained how she had deliberately made Reed regress to the enforced delusional state in which he had been coerced into surrender. "He was suffering extreme pain and hunger, and was probably in the grip of fever," she continued. "If I am any judge, he was close to death. But unfortunately, he has been so traumatized by revisiting that state that his mind seems to be resisting any further manipulation. Effectively, he is trapped in that belief."

"For good?" the captain asked in incredulous dismay. "Can't you… heck, we've got to call Phlox!"

"No, sir." She stopped him as he reached for the comm button. "Mister Reed specifically stated that Doctor Phlox should not be involved in any way. It was his sole condition for attempting this treatment. He accepted the risk for himself, but not for anyone else."

His hand dropped to his side. He stared helplessly at his stricken tactical officer. "You mean – he's going to stay like this? For good? Isn't there anything we can do for him?"

"There is something we can try." She exhaled. "When he was in that delusion he experienced nothing but fear and suffering. But if we can alter his memories, effectively modify his 'programming' … it might be the way out he needs." She paused, as a thought came to her. That inability to emerge from his hallucination might actually not be as involuntary as she'd imagined.

What if the lieutenant himself had somehow recognized an opportunity, and was holding on in the desperate hope that she could take advantage of it?

Logically, there was no reason why he should be trapped by the dream-state; no reason why he should still be reliving that appalling experience. As soon as she understood what she had seen happen, she had let go her control. He should have come back to himself – very badly shaken, no doubt, and probably in need of assistance to recover his mental stability, but awake and aware. Instead of which he had remained delusional. He had continued instead to gorge on warm raw flesh, and her stomach churned at how vivid the memory had been. Her attempt to rouse him by force had resulted in almost hysterical resistance, and that had been the point at which she had taken the decision to relieve the pressure on his mind by the only means available to her.

"Yes," she murmured, almost to herself, as the threads of an idea began to coalesce. "That could be the way…"

She took a moment for thought. Any course of action as risky as this should be considered very carefully before embarking on it. Then, "I am asking you to trust me, Captain." She took a deep breath. "As I am trusting you … not only on my behalf, but also on his."

Archer's mouth twisted wryly, as though he was wondering just how far the lieutenant trusted him now; and probably whether, were Reed conscious and in his right mind, he would have concurred. "I guess we don't have any choice," he said heavily. "Tell me what you want me to do."

In as few words as possible she explained, and he slipped away quickly to fetch what was needed. Fortunately he returned in only a few minutes. By this time Reed was showing definite signs of reawakening.

She wished she was able to give the captain more definite guidance, but the memories she'd accessed were so jagged and inhuman that she had trouble interpreting them. Nevertheless, she was reasonably certain that she could take control of the lieutenant's waking mind and return it forcibly to the event on which everything else had hinged. And she needed to start now.

Re-establishing the link was horrible. To find herself shackled again to all that desperation, that unreasoning savagery: the pain, the fury and despair, and the wild will to live….

The Englishman struggled back up to all fours, swaying as though the effort was all but beyond him. His right arm was tucked underneath him, and she felt the dull throb from its wrist coursing up through his shoulder.

As he raised his head, she heard the captain release a hiss at the sight of the twisted features that had in them so little of humanity. But she felt the gathering intention behind them. He did not see her, though he was directly in front of her. He saw food, and he must kill or die.

"Captain," she said in a whisper, holding that unearthly gray glare. "I believe that now would be a good time…"

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