circled the station once and Kirk had still seen no evidence of damage. The sensors revealed no other ships that could conceivably belong to an enemy.
Kirk glanced over at his science officer.
“Haveyou figured out what’s going on, Mr. Spock?”
“The evidence is contradictory, but I believe we will not immediately be involved in armed conflict. That is the only justifiable inference I can make with the available information.”
“Right,” Kirk said.
“Transmission from Aleph Prime, Captain,” Uhura said.
Aerfen dissolved from the screen. Sulu sat back, startled by the abrupt change, and his shoulders slumped in disappointment.
A thin young white-haired civilian appeared.
“Captain Kirk!” he said. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you’ve come. I’m Ian Braithewaite, Aleph’s prosecuting attorney. Can you beam in immediately?” The official spoke with energetic intensity.
“Mr. Braithewaite—” Kirk said.
“The transmitter’s still locked down, Captain,” Uhura said.
“Open the channel! He asked me a direct question, and I’ll be damned if I’ll beam anybody into Aleph till I know what’s wrong.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Braithewaite, can you hear me now?”
“Yes, Captain, of course. Are you having trouble with your transmitter?”
“Trouble with—! You sent us an ultimate override transmission, we’ve been under radio silence. Technically, I’m violating it right now. What’s going on down there?” “An ultimate?” Braithewaite shook his head in disbelief. “Captain, I’m very sorry, but I just can’t discuss this over unsecured channels. Would it be better if I came up there to talk to you?”
Kirk considered the possibility. Whatever was happening down inside Aleph Prime, it was clearly neither a system-wide emergency nor an enemy invasion. Still, he did not want to beam anyone, or anything, into the Enterprise till he knew for sure what was going on. He was beginning to believe that what it was was a tremendous mistake. He glanced at Spock, but the Vulcan showed no expression beyond a raised eyebrow. Kirk sighed.
“No, Mr. Braithewaite,” he said. “I’ll beam down in a few minutes.”
“Thank you, Captain,” the prosecutor said.
“Kirk out.”
The prosecutor’s image vanished. Sulu surreptitiously touched a control and the view in front of the Enterprise , including Aerfen , reappeared.
“Well,” Kirk said. “Mysteriouser and mysteriouser.” He glanced at Spock, expecting a questioning gaze in response to his poor grammar. Kirk did not feel up to trying to explain Lewis Carroll to a Vulcan, much less Lewis Carroll misquoted.
But then Spock said, straight-faced, “Curious, sir. Most curious, sir.”
Kirk laughed, surprise allowing him a sudden release of tension.
“Then shall we go find out what the bloody hell is going on?”
What Jim Kirk actually wanted to do, now that he was out from under the restrictive communications blackout, was call Hunter. But he could not yet justify taking the time. He and Spock beamed down to Ian Braithewaite’s office deep inside Aleph Prime.
The tall, slender man bounded forward and shook Kirk’s hand energetically. He loomed over the captain; he was half a head taller even than Mr. Spock.
“Captain Kirk, thank you again for coming.” He glanced at Spock. “And—we’ve met, haven’t we?”
“I do not believe so,” Spock said.
“This is Mr. Spock, my science officer, my second in command.”
Braithewaite grabbed Mr. Spock’s hand and shook it before Kirk could do anything to stop him. It was the poorest conceivable manners for a stranger to offer to shake hands with a Vulcan.
Spock noticed Kirk’s embarrassment, but he knew it would be a serious breach of protocol on his own part not to acknowledge the handshake, if the human were this ignorant. Spock endured the grasp. With a few seconds’ warning he could have prepared himself, but there were no extra seconds to be had. Braithewaite’s emotions and surface thoughts washed up against Spock in a wave: normal human thoughts, confused and powerful, with an overlay of unexplained grief. Just as preparing for telepathic communication required time and concentration and energy, so did setting one’s shields against the
echoes of such communication. Spock could not protect himself constantly against every random touch; he had learned to ignore such things, for the most part. But also, for the most part, his shipmates on the Enterprise knew better than to touch him.
Trying to return discourtesy with courtesy, Spock did his best not to notice the brief opening into Braithewaite’s thoughts, resisting the temptation to intrude directly and discover why the Enterprise had been called here. He did not seek out any information, and of the thoughts forced upon him, none was useful.
Spock drew back his hand as he succeeded in sealing his mental shields.
“Please come into the back office,” Braithewaite said. “It’s a little more secure.” He led the way into the next room.
“Sorry, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said under his breath. He had seen the muscles harden along Spock’s jaw, a faint change anyone who did not know Spock extremely well would be oblivious to.
“I will maintain my shields until we return to the ship, Captain,” Spock said tightly.
Braithewaite dragged an extra chair to the inner room so they could all sit down; the cubicle was furnished barely, but crammed with files, data banks, stacks of memory cassettes, transcripts, and the general detritus of an understaffed office. Braithewaite got Kirk a drink in a plastic cup (Spock declined); the prosecutor sat down, then stood up again; his energy-level fairly radiated around him. He paced a few steps one way, a few steps the other. He made Jim Kirk nervous.
“Ordinarily my job is fairly routine,” Braithewaite said. “But the last few weeks ...” He stopped and rubbed his face with both hands. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. A friend of mine died last night and I haven’t quite...”
Kirk stood up, took Ian by the elbow, led him to the chair, made him sit down, and handed him the plastic cup.
“Have some of that. Relax. Take your time, and tell me what happened.”
Braithewaite drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It hasn’t anything to do with why you’re here, I just can’t keep Lee out of my mind. She didn’t seem that sick, but when I stopped by the hospital this morning they said she’d had hypermorphic botulism, and ...”
“I understand, Mr. Braithewaite,” Kirk said. “I see why you’re so upset.”
“She was Aleph’s public defender. Most people expect defense counsel and prosecutor to be enemies, but that’s hardly ever true. There’s a certain amount of rivalry, but if there’s any respect, you can’t help but be friends.”
Kirk nodded. Spock watched the emotional outburst dispassionately.
“I think I can keep hold of myself now,” Braithewaite said. He managed a faint and shaky smile, but it faded immediately. He leaned forward, intense and somber. “You’re here to take charge of the case I just finished prosecuting. It’s like nothing I’ve ever faced before. It started out nasty enough—ten people disappeared and it looked like a murderous confidence game. But it was worse than that. It turned out to be unauthorized research on self-aware subjects.”
“What kind of research?” Spock asked.
“I’m not allowed to say, beyond proscribed weapons development. It doesn’t affect the case, it isn’t what the conviction was for. This way it caused less publicity. And publicity would have been awkward. Federation headquarters has classified everything to do with the case.” He smiled wryly. “They’re not too pleased that I know so much about it. I knew they were concerned, but I didn’t expect them to send a ship like the Enterprise to take the prisoner to Rehabilitation Colony Seven. It’s certainly a secure transport, though.”
“Wait a minute,” Kirk said. “Wait a minute!” All his sympathy for Ian Braithewaite fled. He was raising his voice but he did not care. “Do you mean to tell me,” he shouted, leaping to his feet, “that you diverted the Enterprise —you diverted a ship of the line, with a crew of four hundred thirty-five people—to ferry one man the
