Chapter Twelve: Something of Interest

While Spock and McCoy were spending an uneasy first night together, Kirk had been led into a room that, while was without most of the luxuries he was use to, was not without comfort and much preferable to the other crowded room.

"This will have to do, I suppose," Kirk said eyeing the room and trying to appear casually uninterested and ungrateful.

The man who had offered him the room was standing feet away, hands clasped together and looking anxious. Kirk looked at him and smirked. "Yes. This will do."

He waited for the man to take the silence as a hint and leave.

"Yes… You can go now," Kirk said making a motion for the door and talking to the stranger as if he were a child.

"Please sir there is something I must…"

"I'll inquire if the Empire can compensate you for this," Kirk lied knowing the Empire never would and he had no intention of either. "Now I must insist that I get some rest. I had a… shall we say 'hectic' day."

The Captain spread his arms showing off his bloodstained apparel.

The man looked at the blood. Though Kirk had expected him to flinch or cringe in terror, the stranger simply smiled.

"I can see that you have," the man said in a smooth voice.

Kirk decided instantly that he liked the man even less than he had originally thought. He was too much like himself: minus the good looks, of course.

Before he could say another word, however, the man bowed and left, lifting up a moldy curtain and revealing a door, which was opened and then closed, the man offering one more nod before he disappeared.

Kirk ran a hand through his damp hair. Sighing, he looked at the large bed and marked it as being much too large.

"Of all the planets to have to spend a night on…" the Captain grumbled, starting to remove his clothing. "I have to land on one without the fairer sex nearby!"

When surmised that the bed sheets would be enough to keep him warm, Kirk stripped down to his undergarments and tried to fall asleep without someone next to him.

It had been the first time in months he had had to make do without 'company'.

It was the sound of the lock being turned that awoke the Enterprise's Captain. He had been sleeping soundly, but being a man whom earned a death threat mostly every Stardate, he had learned to keep his ears always listening or someone standing watch at his door.

He listened and waited, as he heard the curtain fall back into place and the sound of several careful footsteps being taken, before he rose and pinned the intruder to the wall. Having taken into account those death threats, Kirk had also taken great measures to make sure that he was a strong and agile man as well. He would not die easily though many had wished he would.

It was no surprise to find the stranger, who had shown him the room, dark eyes meeting his own.

"When I had wished for a little company you weren't quite the type I had in mind," the Captain said.

James T. Kirk kept the same intense pressure around the man's throat, ready to crush it in an instant, although he did not feel the man struggling at all. The alien seemed to be just as confident as he had been before he left.

"Still you better hope that it was my good looks that brought you back in here," the Captain stated. "Because if it was for some other reason you'd better start praying to whatever non-existent Deity you believe in."

The alien brought a hand up to the arm pressed against his throat and smiled. "Let me talk to you," the man managed to mumble and sound surprisingly intelligible.

"Why should I?"

The alien grinned. "I have something that may interest you."

Kirk let him go, understanding why the man had not struggled: he had come to make a proposal. "Do you now?"

The other man massaged his throat, where a red rim was appearing quickly. "My name is Nan De Zheel. I do not belong here."

It was something the First Officer had noticed immediately but something the Captain only realized now.

"I was exiled here by my people…"

"I don't believe that I know your species," Kirk commented. "I think I would have."

"Maybe if you had seen a female of my kind you would have," Nan said silkily. "They are not easily forgotten."

"Talk quickly before I find myself liking you," Kirk said.

Nan continued to feel around his neck. "As I said, I was exiled."

"And may I ask why?" Kirk interrupted in a condescending manner.

"I murdered a man. A scientist. I was his underling. He didn't pay me half what I was worth…"

"You're skirting around the part that you claimed would interest me."

"All good things in time…" Nan cooed. "I believe that you have many enemies."

"You would be right," Kirk nodded.

"I believe that you made another today. That girl. You killed her lover didn't you?" the alien's voice held no sadness. He rejoiced in the cruelty of the action he knew had been done.

Kirk smiled. "Do you really expect an honest answer?"

"No," Nan said. "I know it. I saw the blood on your clothes. She did too."

"Yes," the Captain stated. "I have enemies. Everyone in power does."

"But does everyone have a way to make those enemies simply vanish; no blood to even stain guilty hands?"

Kirk sat down on the edge of the bed he had been sleeping peacefully in moments before.

Nan smiled. He clasped his hands together and danced in one place knowing he had the other man's attention. "The scientist I killed. He had a laboratory… a secret one. I'm the only one who knew of it. When I killed him I didn't have time to go back there or else they would never have gotten to me and placed me here!"

The alien's mirth turned to anger. "The scientist had a certain invention I know that you would love," he continued trying to contain the violence he was clearly feeling.

"And you would give it to me for free?" Kirk asked.

"If you get me free off this place you can have anything in that lab you want," Nan proposed. "I just want my freedom and a place where hands don't turn red from the cold. You have not been here long. I have. If you stay here long enough you can never get warm again. You can drown yourself in another man's blood and it wouldn't be enough."

Kirk studied the alien. "And you offer me this weapon for freedom alone? How kind of you."

"I would require a bit of wealth to ensure my new freedom is comfortable," Nan bowed his head in pretend shame.

"Of course,' Kirk said.

He looked at the ground and considered it.

"What do I have to lose?" the Captain made his decision quickly. "I warn you though that I have ways of my own, without this weapon, to make you disappear forever if you cross me."

The Captain smiled.

"Of course," Nan grinned, showing sharp teeth, Kirk noticed for the first time, were stained in red.