London was nowhere near as cold as New England. That was some relief to Spock, although it made the extra layers he had put on for the walk to transporter station rather redundant once they were in the depths of the Underground amid crowds of other commuters. The shuttles down here were swift in the extreme, but it seemed that no amount of progress could get crowds of people in a small space to move efficiently once they were out of the cars.

'Phew,' Christine said, and he knew that she was hot too. 'Sooner we're out in the open the better. Perhaps I should have had us transport in somewhere closer than Euston. I'm not familiar enough with the area.'

'Euston was the closest transporter station to Dr Alunan's laboratory,' Spock assured her. 'Charing Cross doesn't accept international transportation. There was little option. But I would suggest a taxi on the return.'

'That would be a very good idea,' Christine said. She stepped with him off the top of the last escalator and they moved out through glass doors into the damp air. 'Oh!' she said.

Spock could feel wonder emanating from her mind as they stepped outside. The cane picked out something like small flagstones underfoot and he could hear a bustle of people and traffic, but little else beyond what sounded like the spraying of water and the flapping and cooing of a great deal of birds.

'Euston was so modernised I just didn't expect – ' Christine said breathlessly. 'It's all still – I don't know – eighteenth or nineteenth century?'

'Much of London does retain its ancient architecture,' Spock nodded.

'I didn't know the station brought us right out here. We're right across from Trafalgar Square. With the huge column, and – oh, the statues of lions, and do you hear the fountains?'

'Yes, I hear the fountains,' he nodded. Liberally running water had never greatly appealed to him.

'Did you know the National Art Gallery's just over there?' Christine continued, her desire causing her to take a few steps towards it.

'We are here to meet Dr Alunan,' Spock reminded her. 'We are scheduled to see him in a little under ten minutes.'

'Yes, I know,' Christine said in a tone of disappointment. 'But – let me see – yes, we need to walk directly through the square to get to where we're going.'

Her tone of triumph almost made Spock smile.

'I wonder why they don't call the station Trafalgar,' she mused as they walked forward into the square. What sounded like hundreds of pigeons took to the air and landed again. Sacha's harness quivered. Spock could feel her repressed desire to chase the birds. 'I don't even see a cross,' Christine continued. 'There's a statue of some guy on a horse, but – '

'It is called Charing Cross because of the Eleanor Cross, one of a series of such crosses erected by King Edward the first, in honour of his wife. The cross formerly stood on the site of the statue you mention,' Spock informed her. 'The cross was destroyed during the English Civil War, the statue erected during the Restoration. It is of Charles the second, who returned to claim the English throne.'

He could feel Christine looking at him.

'Did you read the entire history of London before we came here?' she asked dryly.

Spock lifted an eyebrow. 'I familiarised myself with our projected route and the landmarks along the way,' he corrected her. 'A logical preparation.'

'Of course,' Christine said. 'Well, you can be my tour guide.'

'We must get to the lab,' Spock reminded her again. 'If the pigeons will allow us passage.'

'Oh, there really aren't so many,' she assured him. 'It just sounds that way, I'm sure. Just like the people. It's not as crowded as down in the Underground.'

'That much is obvious,' Spock nodded.

'''''''''''''''''

Dr Alunan's lab was in a far more modern building, in an area that looked as if it had been totally restructured during the twenty second century. The place was fronted with great glass windows and a large amount of sleek metal and equipped with what seemed to be all the latest conveniences. This much Christine told Spock on their entry to the building. He could sense the change in architecture. Along the streets the scents and sounds were typical of a landscape constructed of damp stone. In this place the echoes were higher pitched and there was a glittering quality to what light Spock could see.

Alunan admitted them to his lab with an attitude that struck Spock as grudging.

'I was working. I was working,' he grumbled, shuffling across the floor and starting to push things aside on a flat surface.

Spock raised an eyebrow. He could feel Christine's ire raising. 'We had made the appointment in advance,' he reminded the man.

'Yes, yes,' Alunan muttered. Then suddenly he said, 'Not that creature! No, I made no agreement about bringing animals into my laboratory!'

Spock halted in mid step. 'This is my guide dog,' he said. 'She helps me to navigate. There are laws in place ensuring that animal aides are admitted to all venues.'

'No, no, no, not in my lab!' the scientist insisted. 'Not a dog in my lab. The contamination! The dirt!'

'The dog is no more dirty than I am,' Spock replied. Christine shifted uncomfortably beside him.

'Will she wait outside the door?' she asked Spock in a low voice. 'It might be easier.'

'She will,' Spock said reluctantly. 'Next time I shall not bring her.'

He stepped briefly outside the door and told Sacha, 'Lie down. Stay.' Then he took Christine's arm to walk back into the lab.

'Well, then, I suppose you'll sit down,' Alunan said, and Christine took Spock to one of the offered chairs.

Spock decided not to make an issue of the man's combative stance. Christine had already warned him of the man's prickly and suspicious nature, although he had not quite expected this audience to be so begrudged. He sat and took out his padd ready to share any data that might be needed.

'You're not taking anything away on that. Oh no,' Alunan said immediately. Spock could feel Christine bristling.

'Dr Alunan, we're here to help you,' she said crisply. 'I've already assured you that we have no interest in stealing any of your data or taking any credit. All we want is to help find a cure for Commander Spock's blindness. We're working towards the same aim.'

'Well,' Alunan said. 'Well...' There was a silence, then he began in a rush, 'I have been running tests on fifteen subjects all with sensitive tissue types. Cloning their cells and using the cell sheets for my experiments. I believe I'm working towards a much safer way to treat this blindness than your frankly reckless method.'

'I was somewhat surprised that you did not contact me at an early stage of your experimentation,' Spock said. 'The nucleus of the research was pioneered by myself, Miss Chapel, and Dr McCoy, and I am what you would call a perfect model for your experiment.'

'Too far away, too busy,' Alunan said.

Spock was sure that the man was shaking his head. He was a strange sounding man. Spock was aware that he was an Exoxinian, grey skinned and small in stature, and quite different to either humans or Vulcans in appearance and manner, but he had never come across a member of his race in person before. He did not know if this irascibility was peculiar to the species, or just to Alunan's personality.

'You mean that I was too far away and busy, or that you were?' he asked curiously.

'Both, both,' Alunan muttered.

Spock felt Christine shift beside him and gained a sense of her feelings, which were somewhat akin to his own. He was wondering if Alunan had restrained himself from contacting Spock merely because of his great suspicion and jealousy at the thought of a scientist of Spock's reputation entering his lab.

'Well, I am here now, Dr Alunan,' he said in a level voice. 'Would you like to explain your research?'

'You've read the abstract?' Alunan asked.

'The abstract and the paper,' Spock nodded.

'Well then you know. It's a virus. You know that, don't you? What do I need to explain to you?'

Spock held in a sigh. 'I understand that you have developed a virus that weakens the opaque cells in particular, and is relatively harmless to normal body cells. Your research has its roots in the treatment of virulent cancers. What I fail to understand it how one virus can work equally in many different exo-biologies.'

'There's the problem. There's the problem,' Alunan muttered. 'Virulence, mutation, different tissue types. Yes, that's where the problem lies. Every patient is different. People from all corners of the galaxy. How to make a virus work for everyone, how to protect each patient from adverse effects.'

He stood suddenly.

'You will allow me to give you a full physical,' he said. 'I must take blood samples, tissue samples, culture cells from your eyes in particular.'

'In good time,' Spock said flatly. 'Your treatment is an adaptation of the treatment developed by myself and Dr McCoy. Your paper did not go into great detail on that aspect of the process.'

'Oh, that's the most simple part,' Alunan dismissed him. 'The virus weakens the cells sufficiently that a lower dose of disruptor energy is far more effective than your current high power dose. That's all. It's no more than the bite of a flea compared to the level of disruptor energy that you were using. I am working on developing a mutation of the virus that attacks the cells completely, with no need for disruptor energy.'

'It will be fascinating to see how the treatment works,' Christine said eagerly.

'You will let me scan you,' Alunan said, and Spock heard the whirr of a medical scanner. 'I can do nothing without a full make up of your DNA, blood type, your genetic peculiarities, the extent of your blindness.'

'Very well,' Spock nodded. He could see no sense in prevaricating any longer, since it was obvious that Alunan was focussed wholly on getting his scan details. 'Scan me. Then we can talk further.'

'Here then. Over here,' Alunan said, and Christine murmured, 'There's a biobed in the next room.'

Spock stood and unfolded his cane and followed the other two into what felt like a smaller, more constricting room with a lower ceiling. He mounted the bed and lay still while Alunan performed his scans.

'And the tissue samples,' Alunan said. 'Yes? I shall take those now.'

'You may take those now,' Spock nodded.

'Then lie precisely still. There will be no pain. I'll put the grip up against your head to stop any movement.'

'It's just two bars to hold your head still, on either side of your head,' Christine told him as Alunan adjusted something that lay cold and pressuring either side of Spock's skull.

The sound of Alunan's instruments came closer to his face and Christine told him, 'He's just coming down to your eyes. Hold still.'

Spock lay motionless, unblinking as a light descended and there was the slightest pressuring sensation at the front of his eye. Alunan muttered under his breath, and then the man moved away and the restraints were released.

'Is your examination complete?' Spock asked, and Alunan said, 'Oh yes. Get up now. I have everything.'

The atmosphere seemed to mellow now that Alunan had the readings that he desired, and when they moved back into the other room he seemed far more willing to share his research. Spock found himself in such deep discussion that time and surroundings seemed to fade away. It was good after so long away from the ship and his work to be able to focus purely on the logic of a scientific problem, even if he was so personally involved in the problem.

He left the lab with Christine feeling far more positive about Alunan's advances in the area.

'Oh, it's dark already,' Christine said in amazement as they left the building. 'I hadn't realised we'd been in there so long.'

'Well, it is six p.m. local time, and we are fifty one degrees north,' Spock reminded her.

She shook her head as if trying to rid it of an annoying sound. 'Five hours time difference,' she said. 'That always messes with my mind. We left at eight and lost five hours in transit.'

'And will gain five hours when we return,' Spock reminded her. 'It is only a little past lunch time on the East coast.'

'Well, maybe we should go grab some lunch,' she suggested. 'Do you mind spending a little more time here? London is pretty amazing in the dark.'

'Is it?' Spock asked her curiously, an eyebrow raised.

'Oh, well I don't mean the dark is amazing,' she qualified, 'but the lights in all the buildings and along the streets. The rainwater glitters. I'd love to go for a stroll by the Thames. See the Houses of Parliament. Westminster Abbey. Oh, I've wanted to see these places forever.'

'We will have plenty of time,' Spock reminded her. 'Perhaps you could come over without me and see London at your leisure, in the light. After all, I have visited before and sight-seeing is largely lost on me.'

She smiled. 'I guess it is. Well, let's just have lunch, then, and then get back home. I promised Billy I'd call him to talk about meeting up,' she added with a sense of reluctance in her voice.

'You do not like my cousin?' Spock asked.

She squirmed. 'It's not that I don't like him exactly,' she began.

Spock focussed his thoughts on her sense of discomfort. 'Perhaps you can articulate your feelings about him?'

'I don't know,' she shrugged. 'He was just always on me in high school, always a bit too much, you know. Asking me to go out with him. I just didn't like him that much. We didn't have anything in common. And he was too full on.'

'We don't have to socialise with him if you do not want to,' Spock assured her.

She laughed. 'He's your cousin, Spock. Of course we do.'

'Sometimes I despair of ever understanding human social politics,' Spock replied.