Where No Yeoman Has Gone Before

Prologue

On the bridge of the Constellation-class starship Enterprise, James Kirk prevented himself by force of will from tapping his fingers on the armrest of the captain's chair. The last thing he wanted was to let everyone else know just how nervous, aggravated, and upset he felt.

This morning he had bid farewell to his mother and brother, at such great length that when they finally did depart, they departed with relief. He hardly blamed them. He felt too worried to make intelligent conversation or even to exchange family gossip, and after all, only a finite number of ways exist to say goodbye.

He had given the ship a complete inspection, he had conferred with Lieutenant Uhura about the communications network and with Commander Spock over data analysis systems. Mister Spock answered all Kirk's questions emotionlessly, in detail, and in terms Kirk had mostly never heard, much less understood. Despite his stoic exterior, the Vulcan seemed to suspect that Kirk was testing his competence, that Kirk was seeking an excuse to displace him from the position of first officer.

He even asked Amelinda Lukarian if her vaudeville company needed extra equipment or supplies before setting off on their tour of the Phalanx. "Jim, all I need is a good juggler," she said. "I don't suppose you can juggle, can you?"

As it happened, he could, in a manner of speaking, but he hardly intended to admit it and find himself on stage at the next starbase, clutching two beanbags and trying to keep the third in the air. The only time he could get all three bags simultaneously airborne was when he dropped them.

Lukarian was too keyed up by the Starfleet commission, too excited over going into interstellar space for the first time to pick up on his hint that what he really wanted was an excuse to stay in port another day or two before setting off for their first stop, at Starbase 13.

On reflection, he could hardly blame her. She might be persuaded to conspire to delay the Enterprise, but she would do it reluctantly, trying to balance the assumption --- unjustified, he hoped --- that to refuse to help him would damage their working relationship, against the assumption --- entirely justified, he felt --- that insisting on a delay would win the company no points with Admiral Noguchi. The admiral had already called Kirk once, wondering in an elaborately casual fashion just when Kirk intended to set out with his new command.

In short, Kirk had kept the Enterprise in the docking bay as long as he could, and far longer than he wished to. He could not delay any longer. He took a deep breath and then started issuing orders to get the ship under way.

That evening at the captain's table, the chief medical officer had finally gotten tired of making excuses for their host's absence. After all, it had been Captain James Kirk's idea to invite the vaudeville company to sit with him tonight, the first night of their three-month tour of the Federation Phalanx.

"Pardon me just a moment," Leonard McCoy said to the others, rising from his seat. "I'll be right back."

Just over a minute later the turbolift let him out in officers' territory. He headed toward Kirk's cabin and, reaching it, knocked on the door.

"Come." The voice hardly sounded like Jim Kirk's: tired, aggravated, impatient. In the past, his mood had always skyrocketed when he returned to space.

"Your guests are waiting," McCoy said, taking a step inside.

"My guest?" Kirk looked up.

"Your guests. The company. Dinner."

"Oh, lord!" Kirk jumped up. "I lost track. I don't believe it --- I'm already behind in my paperwork."

"What is all this?"

"It's, you know ---" He waved his hands. "Paperwork."

"Why are you doing it?"

"It has to be done," he said, then defensively, "I always do it. But I never had quite so much of it before."

"Where's your yeoman?"

"I don't have one."

"You don't have one?" McCoy said with disbelief.

"I've never had a yeoman."

"You were never captain of a starship before."

"I don't want a yeoman. I don't need somebody fussing over me and sticking things under my nose to sign and being sure the synthesizer put the right stripes on my shirt."

McCoy drew up a chair and straddled it. "Jim, permit your old Uncle Bones to give you some friendly advice. You're commanding twice as many people as you ever have before. Starfleet paperwork increases in geometric --- maybe even exponential --- proportion to the size of the crew."

"It'll be all right as soon as I get caught up."

"You'll never get caught up. What's more, you know you'll never get caught up. This isn't your job anymore."

"I suppose you have a magical solution." Kirk's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"You could send out a press gang ---" At the change in Kirk's expression, McCoy stopped. If he wanted Kirk to follow his advice he had better stop teasing him. Otherwise Kirk would never do it, no matter how sensible his suggestion. "Jim, go down to quartermaster's office, pick out a likely clerk, and promote him."

"It'll take more time to train somebody to do this than it would to do it myself."

"Not in the long run. Not if you pick somebody with more than half a brain."

Kirk muttered something under his breath.

"What was that?" McCoy asked.

Kirk sighed. "I said --- I'll try it. On a temporary basis."

"Good. Now come on. If you think a feeble excuse like work will save you from what the synthesizer has laughingly billed 'dinner,' you have another think coming."

Kirk accompanied McCoy to the mess hall.

Blood flows in strange patterns in zero gravity ---

Jim Kirk cried out and flung himself forward, reaching ---

"Gary, no ---"

As Gary Mitchell collapsed, Jim struggled forward, fighting to see, fighting to stay conscious despite shock, fighting to move through the pain of his crushed knee and his broken ribs, fighting to breathe against the blood in his lungs. If he lost the fight, his closest friend would die.

A scarlet net drifted across the image before him, and he thought that he was blind.

Kirk bolted awake, gasping. He had been dreaming. Dreaming again. "Carol...?" He wanted to hold her, to reassure himself that he was right beside her, not back in the disaster of Gioghe.

Then he remembered, almost as if he were waking from a second dream, that he no longer lived in Carol Marcus's house, he no longer slept in her bed. He was alone.

As his cabin's computer sensed that he was awake, it lightened the darkness around him. He wiped cold sweat from his face and touched the scar on his forehead. At Ghioghe, before the gravity went out, blood from the gash flowed down into his eyes and obscured his vision.

He wished he could go back to sleep; he wished he could sleep without dreaming. Bu the knew he could not. Besides, in fighting the recurrent nightmare he had left his bedclothes twisted and sweat-damp and clammy. He started untwisting them.

Someone knocked at his door.

"What ---? Just a minute!"

Bleary-eyed, he struggled out of his bunk and groped for his robe. He found it and fumbled his way into it, somehow getting the heavy silk twisted till he had one arm in an inside-out sleeve.

"Come."

The door slid open. A young crewmember stood on his doorstep. Her big blue eyes widened even further and then quickly looked away.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello." She was looking everywhere but at him.

"What's the matter?"

"Uh, nothing, sir. I... I'm sorry, sir. Quartermaster said to be here this morning, but I must have misunderstood ---"

Kirk rubbed his eyes and yawned. Then he saw the chronometer.

"Good lord, do you know what time it is?"

"Yes, sir. It's morning, sir."

"This isn't morning, this is the crack of dawn!"

She started to turn away, her eyes somewhere in the vicinity of her feet. "I'll come back later, sir ---"

"No, no, it's all right, come in. I just need a cup of coffee." He turned to the synthesizer.

"I'm here to help with your files?" Her voice rose in an uncertain question. She'd turned back toward him, but her eyes still weren't on him.

"Right over there." He gestured toward the comm unit. His coffee arrived. He sipped it and made a disgusted noise. "This is bad even when the synthesizer works. Whoever designed the template got their idea of how it ought to taste from a third-generation reproduction of whatever they found in a wardroom coffeepot."

She moved around the periphery of the room, staying as far from him as possible and keeping her gaze down.

First day on the job, he thought. It gets to everybody.

"Oh!" she said at her first view of the comm unit. "That's not right!"

He had spent half of yesterday trying to get the damned thing to make sense. His reward was a comm screen with eighteen overlapping message blocks connected by color-coded lines and arrows whose significance he had already forgotten; and now he got criticism from a wet-behind-the-ears crewmember.

"All right, you make sense of it."

She stared at him, her eyes wide. "I ---" she whispered. "I ---"

It's too early for this, he thought, and he fled into the bathroom.

The sonic shower and the coffee, which though it tasted terrible, also was too strong, began to wake him up.

Did I snap at her? he wondered. He tried to convince himself he had not, but failed. Embarrassed, he dressed and returned to the cabin.

She sat at the comm unit with her back to him, her shoulders hunched as if she were trying to make herself even smaller than she already was. He tried to remember what she looked like, but recalled only huge blue eyes and close-shorn blond hair.

He cleared his throat.

She started and jumped up to her feet, facing him, her eyes on the floor midway between them.

"As you were," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you." He gestured at the comm. "Looks better already. Yeoman, did I snap at you a minute ago?"

"Oh, no, sir," she whispered, sitting back down without meeting his eyes.

"I think I did." He smiled. "I apologize. I'm not at my best before I'm awake. Let's start over. Good morning. I'm Jim Kirk."

"Rand, sir," she whispered, more to the comm unit than to him.

"Can you get me out of the hole I've dug, or will you have to start all over?"

She fumbled the commands. He wondered what was wrong, for she appeared to be doing what needed to be done. She stopped, dropped her hands to her laps, and clenched her fingers.

"Is it that bad, Yeoman?" Every time he spoke to her, she flinched. He wished she would stop.

"I'm sorry, sir, it will take a little time to..." She stopped and began again. "I'm sorry, sir, I --- I'm not too experienced..." Her voice trailed off.

He realized she was trying to figure out how not to tell her superior officer that he had made a horrible mess. He wanted to tell her it was all right, but considering his reaction to almost the first thing she had said, she would hardly have any reason to believe he took criticism well. As, in fact, he often did not. Probably the best solution was to go away, let her calm down, and come back later.

"I'm sure you'll do fine, Yeoman," he said, heading for the door. "Lieutenant Uhura on the bridge will know how to reach me, if you have any questions."

"Yes, sir," she said, obviously relieved. "Thank you, sir."

The doors of the turbolift made a fluttery noise as they tried to close against an obstruction.

Lieutenant Uhura looked up. A young crewmember --- the communications officer had seen her once or twice --- stepped forward timorously, as if all that forced her onto the bridge was the knowledge that computer would chastise her if she stayed where she was.

Uhura thought, as she had before, that the young woman would be awfully pretty if she did not always look so terrified --- and if she did not cut her hair so short and ragged. It would look quite nice if she either let it grow or shaved it completely, but this unkempt in-betweeness did nothing for her.

Suddenly, as if starlight dispersed her fears, the crewmember stared in wonder at the viewscreen. The small ports and screens in crew quarters gave only a hint of the powerful beauty of space at warp speed. Seeing it on the viewscreen astonished the young crewmember. Her gaze made Uhura see anew the steady glow of stars in all the colors of the universe.

Uhura crossed the bridge. "Are you lost?"

The crewmember jumped. The pretty little moonstruck girl vanished and the terrified young woman reappeared.

"I don't bite," Uhura smiled at her. "Are you lost?"

"I... I'm the captain's yeoman. I'm supposed to meet the captain...?"

"Welcome to the bridge. I'm Lieutenant Uhura." She waited for the yeoman to introduce herself.

The yeoman looked down. The mug's lid rattled --- the child's hand was shaking!

"I mean --- I'm not really a yeoman yet, but they said..." her voice trailed off.

"What's your name?" Uhura asked gently.

"Rand. Janice Rand."

"Come with me, Janice. I'll introduce you around."

"I don't want to bother anybody ---"

"It's no bother. They'll be glad of the chance to stop having to look busy." Uhura gestured at the mug. "Would you like to put it down?"

"It --- it's the captain's."

"He'll be back in a minute. His place is over here."

Taking the mug from the girl, Uhura placed it on the arm of the captain's chair and then took Rand's hand. She led the Yeoman first to Mister Spock.

"Mister Spock, this is Captain Kirk's yeoman, Janice Rand. Janice, this is Commander Spock. He's the science officer and second in command of the Enterprise.

"How do you do, Yeoman." He gave the barest inclination of his head before returning to his work.

Uhura led Janice to the lower level of the bridge. "Mister Spock is very private," she whispered. "Don't take it personally."

"Is it true... is it true he can read minds?"

"Yes, in a way," Uhura said, softly, then, at Rand's reaction, hurriedly added, "but he has to be touching you, and it's hard, and I don't think he likes to do it. He surely wouldn't without your permission. He only did it that one time because it was a matter of life and death." Captain Pike had omitted the incident from the official report and from the captain's log because of Mister Spock's reticence. But everyone who had been on board at the time knew what had happened and what he could do.

Uhura did not think she had eased Rand's fear.

Hikaru Sulu, the helm officer and Pavel Chekov, the navigator, made Rand more comfortable. They showed her the displays on their complicated consoles and were nearer her age --- but how old was she? Uhura wondered. She did not look even eighteen.

"Of course, nothing interesting is going on now," Sulu said. "It's pretty boring, going from one starbase to another."

Rand glanced at the viewscreen. "But it's so beautiful! And you see it all the time." The expanse of stars held her.

As Uhura had earlier, Sulu and Chekov followed her gaze.

Suddenly becoming aware of her own rudeness, Rand tore her attention from the viewscreen. "I --- I'm sorry, I ---" Her fair complexion colored.

"But you're right, Janice," Uhura said. "It is beautiful. Somehow we get used to it and we forget to look at it the way you do. It's good to be reminded." She squeezed Janice's hand.

"Ah, Yeoman Rand, you're here."

Startled, Rand jerked her hand from Uhura's. Captain Kirk strode onto the bridge.

"Uhura's introduced you around? Thank you, Lieutenant. Yeoman, let me show you what I need you to do."

Rand gave Uhura the look of someone about to be eaten by lions.

Uhura returned to her station. She did not envy Yeoman Janice Rand the job of keeping the executive paperwork, arranging the captain's schedule, reminding him of appointments and changes, and handling problems or referring them to the proper departments unless they would only get worse without Captain Kirk's authority. A list of the duties made the job look trivial. But Uhura had served on a ship with a disorganized yeoman. The captain had lived a life of chaos and everyone considered the subordinate incompetent. A yeoman who coped with the responsibility received little: no notice, few compliments. She decided to try to keep an eye on the kid, at least for the remainder of the watch.

Kirk showed Yeoman Rand to the open console on the port side of the bridge. "It's traditional for the captain's yeoman to use the environmental systems station," he said.

She inspected the daunting display panels.

"Don't be concerned about the complexity," the captain told her in an apparent attempt to ease the doubt and fear in the girl's expression. "Computer runs all the environmental systems. But you can use this console as your work station on the bridge."

"Yes, sir."

"As soon as you can, put together an appointment schedule for me. I want at least half an hour with each person on board. Spread the meetings out during the transit time between starbases. Don't bunch them up into one or two weeks. Try to arrange it so no one will have to visit me in the middle of their sleep cycle --- or mine. Be sure not to conflict with staff meetings or inspections. Make it clear that it's informal, that it's just a chat. But don't take no for an answer. Understood?"

"Yes, Captain."

Kirk nodded. "Make yourself familiar with your station. I'll need you in a moment --- one of your duties is to register the log and bring me the seal to sign."

"Yes, sir."

"Carry on."

"Yes, sir." Rand dived into the console as if seeking to hide.

Instead of going to his chair, he gazed at the viewscreen. He thought he smelled coffee --- good coffee, too. He wondered where the smell was coming from.

The turbolift doors whooshed open to admit Amelinda Lukarian, the manager of the vaudeville company. She carried a roll of paper under one hand and a folder under her arm. She wore a suit of soft white leather. Her iridescent black hair streamed behind her, long and loose, unstyled.

"Jim, have you got a minute?"

Kirk realized he was grinning foolishly at her. He composed himself. "I'm at your disposal."

"I could use some help with this poster." She showed him what she was working on.

He had neither graphics experience nor drawing ability; he failed to cobble up a believable excuse for helping her himself. He decided to give the job to Rand to see if she could handle independent work.

"Yeoman Rand," he said.

She flinched at the sound of her name. "Yes, Captain?"

Impatient with Rand's terror, he let the poster roll itself up against his hands. "Lindy, Yeoman Rand will help you with whatever you need. Yeoman, you have my authorization to call on the ship's resources within reason in order to carry out Ms Lukarian's wishes. For starters you'll need to find a graphics-capable comm unit. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," she whispered.

"Thanks, Jim," Lindy said.

Lindy and Rand left to find a graphics terminal. Kirk watched them go, wondering what he had done to frighten Rand so badly. He did not understand her terror. He wished to know how to alleviate it. He wished he could think of a good reason to spend time with Lindy. He wished he could figure out where the smell of coffee was coming from.

When he took his seat he noticed the mug. Fragrant steam escaped from the vent in the lid.

"What's this?" he asked the bridge in general.

"Yeoman Rand said it was yours," Uhura said from her station.

He lifted the lid and was rewarded by the smell of coffee. He tried a sip. The covered mug had kept it hot and, to his amazement, it tasted the way good coffee was supposed to taste. More than that, it tasted the way good coffee smelled.

Captain Kirk glanced at the turbolift doors through which Yeoman Janice Rand had just disappeared, bemused.

Yeoman Janice Rand found the design room, having only taken two wrong turns along the way. She took a seat and its enormous graphics screen glowed to life.

"Please show me what you have in mind, Ms Lukarian."

"What I have in mind, ma'am, is something attention-getting," Lindy answered, taking a seat beside Rand.

"You mustn't call me 'ma,am'," Rand said. "I'm just a petty officer, and that isn't even registered yet."

"What should I call you?"

"Umm... Yeoman, if you want. Or Rand."

"How about Janice, and you call me just Lindy?"

"If that's what you'd like."

"It'd be easier, don't you think?"

"All right... just-Lindy."

Lindy giggled.

"We'd better do your poster," Rand said, serious again.

Lindy opened her folder. She obviously enjoyed showing off the flamboyant designs. Even more obviously, whoever had painted them really enjoyed their work.

"These are playbills --- reproduction, I mean --- from classic vaudeville companies." She unrolled her new poster and flattened out the curling corners of the paper. "I'm not happy with the design... It'll have to do, it's the best I can come up with. My daddy used to design a new one for every city. They were all different, but you could tell a hundred meters away that they came from our company. Unfortunately," she said, "that's one talent I didn't inherit." She scowled at the paper again. "Maybe the computer could fix it up a little?"

Rand flashed the scanner at Lindy's design.

Lindy groaned when it appeared on the screen, larger than life-size. "I wanted it to look classic but modern at the same time, but all it is, is awful."

"It isn't that bad," Rand said. She stroked the touch-sensitive screen. The letters straightened and fancied to a sort of neo-deco style.

"It never looks the way I imagine it."

"We could adapt something. One of your father's posters, maybe?"

"No!" Lindy's vehemence surprised Rand. "I mean it has to be different. We have different acts."

Rand glanced again at one of Lindy's reproductions. "I'm sure it's fine the way it is," she said. "But if you move this from here to here, and slide this over to this corner..." She rearranged it. "And make the background look like brush strokes, and clean up this line a little..."

Lindy gazed at the new design in silence.

She knew she'd gone too far. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'll put it back the way it was." She reached to delete the changes.

"No, wait!" Lindy said. "Janice, that's beautiful. How did you do that?"

"You had all the elements already. There is one other thing --- I don't mean to keep butting in."

"No, go ahead."

"Different beings see different kinds of light. So if you widen out the color range ---" She made the change.

"It looks awfully dark," Lindy said, doubtful.

"It wouldn't, if you saw ultraviolet or infrared. But I can brighten the middle colors." She did so. "Before, if were a Corellian, say, it would look like this." The computer performed the transposition. The poster darkened almost to black. "Now it would look like this." It brightened in a different way from the original."

"I wouldn't even have thought of that," Lindy said. "How did you find it all out?"

"I've lived a lot of different places. It wasn't anything I did anything special to learn."

"Want a job?" Lindy said.

"What?"

"I need a designer. You could join the company. I don't suppose you can juggle, can you?"

"I though you were the designer."

"No, I'm the manager, among other things. What do you say? Do you want the job?"

Rand dropped her hands to her laps, hiding them from sight. "I can't juggle."

"That's okay! I mean, that part was a joke. Will you join the company?"

"No. I signed on with Starfleet for two years."

"Oh," Lindy said, obviously disappointed. "The offer holds, if you change your mind." She admired Rand's poster. "Hey, have you had lunch? Do you want to go get something?"

"No --- I mean, I'm sorry, I can't. I left papers all over Captain Kirk's desk. I'm sorry, I have to leave."

"Okay."

I guess I don't know Jim well enough, Lindy thought as Yeoman Rand hurried away. I wouldn't have guessed he'd get mad if she took a lunch break.

Yeoman Janice Rand returned to the captain's cabin. She sighed. Helping Ms Lukarian with the poster had put her awfully far behind. She had to admit she enjoyed the work, until she realized she had been talking to the manager almost as if they were equals. Lukarian had not seemed offended, but sometimes people covered up their anger for a while and then let it boil out all over you.

She envied Lukarian her freedom --- freedom to choose how she would act and how she would dress and how she would look, unhampered by regulations and laws and proscriptions and rules. She allowed herself a moment to wonder if, now that she was in Starfleet, far from the world she had escaped, she might let her own hair grow a little. Then she shook her head at the frivolity.

She set back to work on the executive files. Captain Kirk really had made a botch of them --- she wondered why he had tried to do all the work himself --- but with computer's help she got them straightened out and in a form that made them comprehensible and compatible, rather than awkward and unique.

She had access to far more computer power at the captain's comm unit than she ever had with quartermaster. She had the freedom to design her own work; she could speak directly to computer. Quartermaster only allowed his subordinates to work within a narrow frame that he designed. He disliked it if someone tried to suggest a quicker or more efficient method.

She did not explore the system too aggressively, afraid that she might somehow stumble onto something she was not supposed to see or know about, and set off an alarm.

She paused to stretch and rub her eyes.

"Yeoman, are you all right?"

She leaped up, alarmed by the unexpected voice.

"Yeoman! It's just me." Captain Kirk gazed at her with a bemused expression.

"I'm sorry, you frightened me, I didn't hear you ---!" She clutched the edge of the desk. "I'm sorry, sir, I ---" she had been daydreaming; she had no excuse. "I'm sorry."

"You're working late --- the files must have been a mess."

"Oh, no, sir." She could hardly tell him the truth. She was glad she already knew how much this one disliked criticism. The ones who were the most dangerous encouraged you to say what was wrong, then punished you for being honest.

"You've done enough for today. You run along. Come back tomorrow."

"I'm --- I'm sorry I'm not finished, sir, but really, it will only take me another few minutes. Sir." She set back to work, wishing he would not watch over her shoulder. Soon he wandered away. A leather chair squeaked and sighed when he sat down; the pages of his book rustled as he found his place.

"Yeoman, I don't remember calling the steward --- did you straighten up around here?"

She looked up, feeling her face pale with apprehension, then turn red with embarrassment. Her fair complexion shouted her emotions to the world, and she hated it.

I was afraid of this, she thought. He doesn't like people touching his things... or suppose he can't find something and thinks I stole it. I knew I should have put everything back where it was.

But she had not memorized where everything had been. If he had noticed the difference, he would have thought she had been snooping. "I'm sorry, sir, I didn't think ---"

"Yeoman, stop apologizing for everything!"

"I'm sorry, sir. I mean, yes, sir."

He scowled. "I didn't intend to criticize. It wasn't necessary for you to clean my cabin, that's the steward's job, but thank you anyway."

"Yes, sir. You're welcome, sir."

She tried to work, but he shifted in his chair, cleared his throat, rustled pages. His impatience frayed her nerves. If he would only let her alone ---"

"Yeoman ---"

"I'm almost finished, sir, honestly!"

"This isn't emergency duty --- it isn't necessary for you to finish it tonight."

"It... it isn't?" she said, amazed. "Sir?"

"No, it isn't. I thought I said that already. Shut things down and go get yourself an early dinner. Rest your eyes. Relax. Have a swim or a game of jai alai or whatever you like to do in the evenings. Finish this tomorrow."

"Oh. All right, sir, if that's what you want." He probably wanted to check her work so he could get he could get someone else if she was putting things in a muddle. She hoped he did not notice that she had barely started on his schedule.

She shut down the system. She would prefer to work. She didn't like to swim --- it meant taking off her clothes and putting on... less. Her roommate played jai alai in the intramural league, but the dangerous game terrified Rand. People always started classes on the ship, but if she joined one everybody would wish she would go away. As for an early dinner --- she preferred eating late, with no one else around. She hoped she knew table manners now, but she might make another mistake. Then everyone would laugh at her again.

An early dinner meant a long lonely evening in her cabin. If her roommate was there with her friends, they would not talk to her. She evaded questions, so they thought she was stuck-up and creepy. Too late, she'd learned that the way to divert attention from her background was to ask other people to talk about theirs.

"Yeoman, how old are you?" Captain Kirk asked.

"What? Sir ---?" Her knees trembled. She collapsed at the comm unit, pretending to have one final task. She wondered frantically if it were he, not the Vulcan science officer, who could read minds. If he could, he knew her secrets. She ought to break down and confess. But if she did, they might be lenient with her and send her back. She would prefer a reformation camp or even prison. They let you earn money in refo, didn't they? A little? She would have to pretend to be tough and mean and unrepentant so they would think she was unfit to be returned.

"How old are you?"

"I --- I'm almost twenty, sir. I forget exactly. I always have to convert to Earth-standard years."

"You don't look twenty," he said.

She distrusted his smile. She tried to laugh. It came out faint and false. "People always say that, sir."

"Decided young to go to space, eh? So did I. A family tradition? Or did you choose it on your own?"

Her carefully invented details vanished in her fear. "I decided on my own, sir," she said, hoping she had never told anyone the opposite. Before he could ask her another question, she plunged ahead. "What about you, sir?"

He spoke about his background and his past, about his parents and his brother, about his best friend very ill in the hospital. At first her fear deafened her, but her ruse had worked, so she calmed a little and heard what he was saying. He had done fascinating things and visited fascinating places, and he told of them with wit and charm.

The charming ones were even more dangerous than the thoughtless ones or the cruel ones.

He stopped. "I didn't mean to go on like that, Yeoman. You run along. I'll see you tomorrow."

Yeoman Janice Rand fled.

Jim Kirk flung himself into a chair in the sickbay office and put his feet on the desk, taking considerable pleasure in the solid thud of boot heels on wood.

"Do come in," Doctor McCoy said. "Sit down. Make yourself comfortable."

"The good news is, Gary's awake."

McCoy sat up straighter. "He is! That is good news, Jim."

"I just got off the comm with him. He's still pretty groggy --- but he's going to be all right, Bones."

"I never doubted it for a minute," McCoy said. "What's the bad news?"

"The bad news is, I took your advice ---"

"And you've come for your medical appointment without my having to send out the hounds! Hallelujah, brothers!" He rose. "Into the coverall with you!"

"No, no --- I don't have time for an exam. I mean I took your advice about a yeoman."

"And ---?"

"And every time I speak to her, I scare her. She's a real case. She apologizes continuously."

"Continually," McCoy corrected.

"No, dammit, continuously. Every time she says anything, she starts out with 'I'm sorry'."

"Sounds pretty neurotic to me, all right."

"If that's true, how'd she get into Starfleet?"

McCoy laughed. "Jim, are you kidding? If Starfleet turned people down because of a major neurosis here or there, it'd have enough personnel for... oh, maybe one cruiser. A small cruiser."

"But ---"

"We've all got our neuroses. I do, you do. Everybody."

"With the exception, I'm sure, of our Mister Spock."

"Spock!" McCoy snorted. "Spock worse of all! He represses all of half his heritage and most of the rest of it. Vulcans' worst neuroses is they really believe they're sane!"

"What do you mean, half his heritage?"

"His human half, of course. On his mother's side, I believe."

"I thought he was a Vulcan."

"So does he," McCoy said dryly.

"What else do you know about him?"

"He isn't much for idle chatter. I've heard of him, of course. Then there's the usual stuff in the medical record. Incredible education the man's got, and he's taken advantage of his opportunities --- he's worked with people most of the rest of us would be lucky ever to meet."

"What do you mean, Bones? That he's well connected or that he's bright?"

"Bright? Bright hardly begins to describe him. He's brilliant, Jim. As for the other... he's only well connected if you count the relatives who are top-ranked diplomats or senior research scientists." McCoy grinned. "To tell you the truth, I never heard of a Vulcan whose family wasn't well connected."

Kirk felt in no mood to be amused. "Is that why he got promoted over Gary?"

"Because he has family connections and Mitch doesn't? I don't know. Why don't you ask him?"

"I can see that: 'Say, Commander Spock, is your success due to nepotism?' " Kirk shook his head. "I'm not being fair. I know it. I haven't given him a chance. It's only..." He changed the subject. "What am I going to do about Yeoman Rand?"

"Is her work poor?"

"Not at all. She made noise about her lack of experience, then pushed two buttons and the files made sense."

"You aren't looking for a graceful way to demote her and send her back to quartermaster?"

"No, I just want her to stop flinching when I talk to her! I hope she doesn't turn up all bright-eyed at my cabin two hours before breakfast anymore, either. That much enthusiasm is hard to take at dawn."

"Hmmm," McCoy said.

"She has to use the comm unit," Kirk said defensively.

"Why does she have to use your comm?"

"She has to work someplace --- she can't spread my papers out all over the bridge."

"Is the yeoman's comm broken?"

"What yeoman's comm?"

McCoy sighed and gazed in supplication at the ceiling. "Jim, you're still thinking in cruiser terms --- and you need a grand tour of your own ship. Including the yeoman's cabin, which is down the corridor from yours." His voice trailed off. "Jim, you didn't promote her out of seniority, then leave her in crew's quarters?"

"She's who quartermaster sent, so she's who I promoted. As for the other --- I never thought about it."

"That's hard on morale. Have her move. Then one of your problems is solved. Maybe two --- she flinches because the promotion's gotten her some heavy hazing."

"I doubt it. She flinched from the beginning."

"Then the flinching may take longer. I'll talk to her during her exam and see if I can find out what's wrong."

"Look, if she's seriously disturbed ---"

"Jim! Half the time our neuroses are what allow us to function as well as we do in the circumstances we pick. I could give examples, present company included, but I don't have time to psychoanalyze you today. Though I would have had time to give you your physical, if I'd started when you got here."

Kirk grinned. "So you would."

"But I don't now. So buzz off. I've got another appointment in five minutes."

"Buzz off? Is that any way to talk to your C.O.?"

"Buzz off, sir,"

When Jim Kirk arrived on the bridge in the morning, he felt great. He had slept the night through without a recurrence of his persistent nightmares of Ghioghe. Gary Mitchell was on his way to recovery, the Enterprise was purring along without a hitch, and Kirk had won last night's game of chess, nearly managing to crack Commander Spock's taciturnity in the process.

Kirk felt pleased with himself. He was also sleepy. He wondered where Yeoman Rand had gotten the incredible coffee she'd given him yesterday. He wondered if there might be more of it somewhere.

Today it was not Rand's fault that he got too little sleep. McCoy's advice appeared to have worked. Kirk had seen nothing of her this morning.

No, his sleepiness was his own fault, and he did not care. He had traded half the night's sleep for the hard-played chess game with Commander Spock. He had won with a flamboyant, some might even say reckless, series of moves. Spock had been winning until Kirk's final, exhilarating rally.

The Vulcan, already at the science officer's station, showed no evidence of having been up till all hours.

"Good morning, Commander Spock."

"Good morning, Captain."

"I enjoyed our game last night."

"It was..." Spock hesitated, "... most instructive."

Kirk supposed that was as close as a Vulcan was likely to come to admitting he had enjoyed himself.

Kirk thought back, trying to recall a moment when he had been on the bridge and Commander Spock had not. The Science Officer came on early and stayed late. Maybe he wanted to demonstrate his devotion to his position as both science officer and second-in-command, to prove Admiral Noguchi had made the right decision.

Or maybe, he thought, the two jobs are too much for any single person. Maybe Noguchi should have let me make my own choice. And maybe Commander Spock shouldn't rub in the fact that I wasn't allowed to.

Kirk received the reports of the bridge stations, which all boiled down to "nothing to report." Engines and systems functioning normally. On course and on schedule. No urgent communications from Starfleet. No emergencies.

At times like this, space travel could get downright boring. He wished something would happen.

He wondered if Rand had begun setting up his meetings schedule. And where was she? She should report here first every morning, but he had neglected to mention that to her.

He tried to reach her at the yeoman's cabin. Though he had left orders for her to move into it immediately, computer registered no occupant.

He checked his schedule. Computer showed one appointment today and nothing thereafter. He sighed, wondering if he had gotten himself stuck with a yeoman who did everything in a hysterical flurry at the last minute.

Then he noticed whom his first appointment was with: Doctor Leonard McCoy.

The turbolift whooshed open. Yeoman Rand sidled to the environmental systems station and started to work.

"Yeoman Rand," he said stiffly.

"Yes, Captain?" she whispered.

"About my schedule."

"Yes, sir, it's right here, sir."

"But you made an appointment for me with Leonard McCoy," he said. "Doctor McCoy and I have served together for years. Didn't you notice that we both came to the Enterprise from the same ship?"

"No, sir. He didn't say --- I'm sorry, sir."

Dammit, she was flinching and apologizing again. He started to say something. He suddenly became aware of her appearance.

Her uniform easily two sizes too big, her hair rumpled --- though how hair that short could contrive to rumple, he did not know --- and her eyes watery, she huddled in the seat as if she could make herself disappear.

"Yeoman Rand, are you all right?"

"Yes, Captain," she said in a small voice.

"What's your excuse for your disheveled appearance?"

"None, sir."

"Did you get my message about the yeoman's cabin?"

"Yes, sir, a few hours ago."

"Why haven't you moved in?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I... I just haven't." Her voice grew even smaller.

"Do it now. And don't ever --- I repeat, ever --- show up on my bridge in anything even hinting at your current state of disrepair."

She looked at him, stricken, fighting back tears. She leaped to her feet and bolted into the turbolift.

Uhura looked down at Captain Kirk. She found it hard to believe that anyone, under any circumstances, could speak to a child like Janice Rand in such a harsh tone. The communications officer put her station on standby.

"Excuse me," she said coldly. "I have a break coming." She left without waiting for Kirk's dismissal. The turbolift closed. "Take me wherever you took your last passenger," she told it.

The turbolift let her out into a deserted corridor, nowhere near crew quarters or officers' territory. Uhura wondered what Rand was planning to do. In her current emotional state, maybe she was not planning anything. Maybe she just wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, away from the bridge.

In he second briefing room she checked, Uhura found Rand crying uncontrollably with her head pillowed on her arms.

"Janice, don't cry. There, there, it's all right." Uhura sat beside her and put her arm around Rand's shoulders.

Rand flinched away, huddling in on herself, trying to stop crying and only making it worse.

"Everything's all right. It's going to be all right," Uhura patted her shoulder and stroked the irregular fuzz of her hair.

"I couldn't help it!" Rand whispered, he voice shaky and broken. "I understand why Roswind hates me now, but she hated me before when she didn't have any reason to, and it isn't my fault."

"Of course it isn't," Uhura said. She had no idea what Rand was talking about, but she kept on offering reassurance until the child calmed down.

After ten minutes or so, Rand cried herself out. Her face was red and her eyes swollen with tears and she sniffled occasionally. With her rough-chopped hair and her baggy uniform, she looked a mess. Uhura got a towel from the steward's station in the corner and gave it to her.

"Better now?" Uhura said. "Wipe your eyes. Blow your nose. There. Take a deep breath. Good. Now. Tell me what happened."

The words came out in a tumble. Rand had no conception of hazing. Sometime in her life she had decided, or had it demonstrated to her, that sticking up for herself was more dangerous than submitting to humiliation. This troubled Uhura; she wondered if Rand's spirit had been crushed beyond recovery.

"And then this morning," Rand said, "I went back to the cabin to get my things and move, and I just lay down for a second, only I was so tired I fell asleep and when I woke up I was late, and I put my uniform on only it was the wrong uniform. I know I ordered the right one but it isn't the one that was there when I lay down, and I didn't know whether to order another one and wait, or put it on and go to work and Roswind laughed till I could hardly think." Her lips quivered. She hovered on the brink of tears again. "She's so beautiful and I admired her so much at first, but all she ever did was make fun of me and laugh."

"Why didn't you just laugh, too?"

Rand stared at her, uncomprehending. "I had to go to work."

"She was teasing you, Janice. Maybe she let it go farther than she meant --- I hope that's all it was --- or maybe she's the sort of person who likes to see how far she can push you. Usually all you have to do is push back."

Rand said nothing. She sat very still, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, giving every indication of listening to what Uhura said to her. But the expression in her eyes was lost, distant, hopeless.

"Where are you from, Janice?"

"What? I'm sorry, I mean..."

"Where's your home world?"

"Oh," she said, her voice rising into a brittle false cheer. "I'm from all over, we moved around a lot."

"Who's we? Your family, your community? Where did you go?"

"Why are you asking me all these questions?" Rand cried. "Why should you care, what do you need to know for?"

"I care because it hurts me to see anyone as frightened as you are. I care because we have to work together, and we can't if you act like a scared sixteen-year-old."

Rand gasped and her fair skin paled. Uhura feared she would faint. The child flung herself on her knees at Uhura's feet.

"How did you find out? Oh, please, please, don't tell, don't tell anyone ---"

"Janice ---!"

"Please, I'll do anything! Just don't tell!"

"Janice, get up!" Embarrassed, horrified, Uhura practically dragged Rand up. "Stop it, now, stop it!"

Rand jerked herself away from Uhura. "How did you find out?" she cried.

Uhura realized what Rand believed. "Like a shared sixteen-year-old," Uhura had said. Without meaning to, Uhura had discovered Rand's secret.

"That doesn't matter," Uhura said.

"If you tell, I'll kill myself! I'll kill you! I'll ---"

Uhura could not help but smile. She drew the terrified child into a hug. "Nobody's killing anybody. Don't be silly."

After a while Rand's sobs subsided. She huddled against Uhura as if she were starved for comfort.

"However did you get into Starfleet at sixteen? They're pretty strict about that." Starfleet would send younger cadets, officer candidates, on heavily supervised training cruises, but regulations permitted no human under seventeen to join the crew. Safeguards and double-checks prevented children of any sentient species from running away to join Starfleet on a lark.

Whatever Janice Rand's motives, she had not run away on a lark.

"When I was little, my family moved," Rand whispered. "The warp engines blew, and we had to travel through normal space. We accelerated almost to light-speed, so it only took us a few weeks of subjective time. But objective time, it was three years."

"Nobody ever corrected the records?"

Rand shook her head.

"I don't see how you got away with it." To Uhura, Rand did not look anywhere near twenty. She looked like a sixteen-year-old. But no one ever thought about her, no one ever asked.

"I lied," Rand said. "I'm scared to, because when people find out you've done it, they --- they don't like it. But I had to. People believe a big enough lie. They figure you'd never dare say it if it wasn't true."

Uhura laughed, then sobered. "What are we going to do with you?"

Rand's eyes widened. "You are going to tell!"

Appalled by the prospect of Rand's falling on her knees again, Uhura tried to reassure her. But she was unwilling to promise not to send her home. "Don't be so frightened. We need to talk. Would going home be so bad? You're just a kid, Janice. You should be going to school, back with our family ---"

"No! I'll never go back! You can't make me!"

"Don't you think they're worried about you? Wouldn't they want to know you're safe, no matter what happened, no matter what you did?"

"I didn't do anything!" Rand said. "But I will --- I'll make you put me in prison before I go back to Saweoure!"

"I'm not putting anybody in prison, Janice, and I never heard of Saweoure."

"It's where we ended up after the ship lost its warp drive. We didn't have enough money to get it fixed. We had to sell it and stay there. But you can't just stay there if you don't have any money. You have to be under somebody's 'protection'." Quite calmly, Rand told her the rest of it.

When she finished, Uhura felt near tears.

"Janice..." She took a deep breath. "What you're describing is nothing more than slavery! How is this allowed to go on? Hasn't anyone tried to stop it?"

Rand's voice turned bitter. "How should I know? Maybe it's easier for the Federation to think everything's all right. Maybe everybody likes it that way so they keep it a secret."

Uhura welcomed Rand's bitterness and her anger, for it proved her spirit still existed. "How did you get away?"

"After our parents died I sneaked me and my brothers on board a cargo shuttle. We were too ignorant to know it was impossible. Once the shuttle got back to its mother ship, we stayed hidden. It wasn't too hard. Then we hid in a crate of relief supplies, and when we landed we snuck into the Faience refugee camp ---"

"You snuck into Faience?" The camp was a horror story of mismanagement and malice in the middle of a system-wide disaster, and many people had died needlessly.

Rand shrugged. Uhura felt a certain awe at the coolness with which Rand faced her past, if not her present.

"It was better than where we'd been," Rand said. "Then Starfleet came to relocate us, and that's when I found out I was legally three years older than I really am. I don't have any records except my birth certificate."

"What about your brothers?"

"They didn't even have birth certificates. The officials at Faience patted us on the head and said, 'Oh, you poor children,' and registered Ben and Sirri. Since I was of age, I got their guardianship. I found them a good school and I joined Starfleet so I could pay for it."

Amazed that anyone could go through what Rand had endured and survived, Uhura tried to think of some words of encouragement.

In the few seconds of silence, the young yeoman's steadiness evaporated as she waited for still another person with complete power over her to determine her fate.

"I'm almost seventeen," Rand whispered. "I mean I'm almost really seventeen. I think, as near as I can figure. I do my job, Uhura." She hesitated. "I guess you wouldn't know that from today, though."

"I think you should tell," Uhura said.

"No!"

"I think you should testify before the Federation of Planets Rights Commission. I think you should try to stop what's going on."

"I can't."

"Janice ---"

"Uhura, you don't understand! I committed a crime by sneaking on board that cargo ship."

"It's illegal to prevent citizens from moving freely ---"

"But it isn't illegal to charge a lot of money to get from one place to another, and I didn't pay for a ticket. Stowing away is the same as hijacking, on Saweoure. If I testified, the officials would call me a criminal and a liar and a thief. And they'd be able to prove what they charged me with. I did all those things. Please don't tell. Please."

"You should tell --- you should tell the authorities what you told me."

"The authorities?" Rand said angrily. "Like who, for instance? Like Captain Kirk? He wouldn't listen to me. He'd think I was just making something up."

Uhura hesitated. If she had found all this out while Captain Pike still commanded the Enterprise, she would not have hesitated to urge Rand to confide in him. But she did not know Kirk well enough to have any idea how he might react to Rand's story. Rand certainly had little reason to have any confidence in his sympathy. Not after what had just happened on the bridge.

"Please, Uhura," Rand said again. "Please don't tell."

Uhura replied with great reluctance. "All right, I promise. My word still means something to me. I don't break it."

"Thank you, Uhura."

"I still think --- at least consider talking to the Rights Commission," Uhura said. Before Rand could react with fear again, Uhura changed the subject. "Now let's get you fixed up and back to the bridge. The sooner you forget about this morning, the better."

"I have to... to go back to my cabin. I left my things on my bunk. Roswind will be there, I guess."

"Forget about your roommate. You move into the yeoman's cabin. Wash your face. Put on a fresh uniform. I'll get your things for you."

"Oh, Uhura, would you?"

"Leave it to me," Uhura said.

If either of them saw anything wrong with a lieutenant fetching things for a yeoman, neither woman said anything.

On the bridge, Jim Kirk sat stiff and angry, his arms folded across his chest. Blast Rand anyway, she had wrecked his good mood. Everyone pretended they had noticed neither Rand's embarrassment nor Uhura's anger. No doubt they all thought he had been too hard on his new yeoman.

They could think what they liked. He could be as easygoing as anyone, but if people took advantage, things would have to change. He loathed having anyone play on his sympathy, especially with tears.

The turbolift returned. Amelinda Lukarian bounded out. Kirk wondered why Janice Rand could not take Lindy or Uhura as a model; and how had Rand managed to persuade the synthesizer to give her a uniform in the wrong size, anyway? That took real talent.

"Hi, Jim, I came to give Janice the first-off-the-press poster." Lindy unrolled her paper. "She did a terrific job. You've got a treasure, Jim. Even if she can't juggle. Think Starfleet would come after me if I shanghaied one of its people?"

He restrained himself from telling her that she could have Yeoman Janice Rand right now. He looked at the poster. "It is eye-catching," he admitted.

"Janice designed it practically from scratch," Lindy said. "I brought one for you, too, but the first one is for her. Where is she?"

"She... er... she had some work on another deck. She'll be back." He felt a good less certain than he sounded.

"Okay, I'll wait. And I have one more small favor to ask ---"

The turbolift doors whooshed and Yeoman Rand returned. She had changed her uniform and combed her hair; she looked fragile and unhappy, but she had retreated from the brink of tears. Without a word she took her station.

"Speak to my yeoman about any problems you have with your company, Ms Lukarian," Kirk said. "Or your pets. Now, I do have work to do --- even if nobody else does."

Lindy smiled at him and jumped up all the steps at once to join Rand. Kirk wondered if she ever just walked anywhere. And he wondered what he could do to get her to smile at him again.

"Captain, excuse me." Yeoman Rand spoke almost too softly for him to hear her.

"Whatever Ms Lukarian needs, within reason, please take care of it."

"I will, sir. But you asked me to arrange your schedule, too. Computer has it now, if you want to review it to give me any changes." She hesitated. "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding about Doctor McCoy. He expects you in ten minutes. Should I call him and cancel for you?"

"No, Yeoman, never mind."

Pretending to be busy, he brought the schedule up on his tablet and glanced through it.

At least she had done as he asked this time. The appointments stretched over the next three months. He thought it important at least to meet everyone on board.

He stood up. "I'll be in sickbay for the next half-hour," he said to no one in particular.

When Uhura arrived at Janice Rand's old cabin, the crew member who had admitted her glanced up with disinterest, then noticed the officer's stripes and jumped to her feet.

"Lieutenant!" she said. "Umm ---" She was very tall and extremely beautiful, and Uhura could understand why Rand felt overwhelmed by her.

"You are ---?" Uhura said, deciding to let her stand and sweat.

"Uh, Roswind, ma'am."

"Roswind, I believe Yeoman Rand left some of her belongings behind when she moved."

"Uh, yes, ma'am. They're right over there."

"Thank you." She collected the possessions, thinking, Well, Roswind, you're not such a bully when you're outranked, are you?

"How is Janice doing, ma'am?"

"Captain Kirk is obviously impressed with her," Uhura said, reflecting that, from one point of view, the claim was no stretch of the truth. "Oh, by the way, Roswind, do you have any allergies? Hay fever, particularly?"

"No, ma'am, not that I know of. Not hay fever."

"Excellent." Taking her own good time, she rearranged Rand's belongings and tied them up in a scarf. She regarded the parcel carefully, picked it up, and started for the door.

"Uh, ma'am?"

"Yes, Roswind?"

"Why, ma'am?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you want to know if I had any allergies, ma'am?"

"Because of your new roommate."

"I don't understand, ma'am."

"Some human beings react adversely to her species, but the reaction correlates almost a hundred percent with hay fever, so you needn't worry."

"What species is she, ma'am?"

"Why? You aren't ---" Uhura lowered her voice. "You aren't xenophobic, are you?"

Since xenophobia could get one dishonorably discharged from Starfleet, Roswind reacted most satisfactorily.

"No, ma'am, of course not! I get along with everybody! I was just --- curious."

"I see. I'm sure you'll get along with her, too. Her people are intelligent and soft-spoke. Just one thing."

"What's that, ma'am?"

"Their planet rotates about every sixty hours, so their circadian rhythm is different from hours. She'll stay awake longer than you do, and sleep longer, too. Her people are known to react badly if they're awakened, so you'll want to be cautious."

"What do you mean, 'badly,' ma'am? You mean she'll jump up and bite you?"

"No, no, she'd never hurt you. Her people are quite timid. But shock might put her into hibernation. If that happens, she'll sleep for weeks. That wouldn't do her career any good."

"Oh," Roswind said. "I see. I'm sure we won't have any trouble, ma'am."

"Good. Well, Roswind, thank you for your help." She started for the door again.

"Lieutenant?"

"What is it, Roswind?"

"What does my new roommate look like, ma'am? Just so I'll recognize her, I mean."

"You won't have any trouble recognizing her," Uhura said. "She's green."

"How do you do, Doctor McCoy. I'm James T. Kirk, your captain," he said as he strolled into the sickbay office. "How nice to meet you, and what a surprise. Are you having any difficulties? All your supplies in order? What do you think of the ship?"

"How do you do, Captain?" McCoy said. "Everything's fine, just fine." McCoy tossed him an examination coverall.

"What's this?"

"Examination coverall."

"I know that ---"

"Transparent to diagnostic signals ---"

"I know that, too ---"

"And you've got a free half-hour ---"

Kirk frowned. "This is a setup, isn't it? Between you and Yeoman Rand."

"It's a setup, but she didn't have anything to do with it. She said you'd wanted to chat with everyone on board the Enterprise ---"

"And you conveniently forgot to mention that you've known me since I was a lieutenant."

"If you didn't want a get-acquainted appointment with me, you should have told her."

"She might have noticed we've shipped out together before."

"Oh, I see." McCoy nodded gravely. "Aside from learning a new job, and making sense of that mess on your desk, and spending the next week setting up your appointments, she's supposed to memorize all the Enterprise personnel service records. And do it all overnight."

"No, of course not. It would have been convenient if she'd made the connection, though." Then something McCoy had said made a connection in Kirk's mind. He swung McCoy's comm unit around.

"Make yourself at home," McCoy said dryly.

Kirk started when he read the screen, for McCoy had been filling out a requisition form for a package of regen starter culture.

Kirk pretended he had not noticed the subject of the requisition. He called his own schedule from the files. He paged through it, noting its regular progression, day after day. In the last twenty-four hours or so, Rand had set up several hundred appointments for him; she had put them in clusters of a few each day, and though many members of the crew worked middle or low watch and slept odd hours, and some people worked on a schedule that had nothing to do with the twenty-four-hour circadian rhythm of the human majority on the Enterprise, Rand had somehow managed to keep his early mornings clear.

"It didn't take her a week," he said.

"What are you talking about?"

"I didn't think how long it would take to arrange that complicated a schedule until you mentioned it. Somehow, she's nearly done. She must have gone back to the bridge and worked all evening. Maybe all night."

McCoy looked over his shoulder. "You know, Jim, you're not supposed to work yeomen so hard they don't have time to sleep. I think it's against regs or something."

"I was really rough on her this morning." Kirk tossed the exam coverall on McCoy's desk. "I'll see you later." He headed for the door.

"Jim, wait! You've got to have your exam." McCoy followed him into the corridor. "If you get it over with now, you won't have to worry about it anymore."

"Who's worried?" Kirk said without slowing down, determined to put off giving McCoy a look at his knee just as long as he could.

Uhura managed to keep from laughing in Roswind's face, but as soon as turbolift doors closed safely behind her, she dissolved into giggles.

Halfway to officer's territory, the turbolift paused.

Captain Kirk joined her.

"I could use a good laugh, Lieutenant," he said. "You wouldn't want to tell me the joke, would you?"

"No, sir," she said, coldly, still angry with him for the way he had treated Rand. "Captain, people are sometimes under pressure that you don't know about."

He raised his arms as if to protect his head from a blow. For one awful moment Uhura feared he, too, would fall to his knees at her feet.

"I confess! Mea culpa!" Captain Kirk's voice and actions seemed part mocking, yet part serious. He lowered his hands. "Doctor McCoy read me one riot act about Yeoman Rand, I can't say I'd blame you if read me another. If I promise to apologize, will you spare me?"

"I think you should apologize in public," Uhura said.

That brought him up short. He paused, considered, and nodded. "You're right," he said. "I chewed her out in public, so it's only fair. Now will you forgive me?"

"Yes, sir," she said. "Gladly."

"And now will you tell me the joke?" He looked like a little boy who realized for the first time that his mischief had caused grief and pain. He looked like someone who needed reassurance. If he had been anyone but the captain of the ship, she would have let him in on her plans for Roswind.

"No, sir," she said. "I can't. It's personal."

Lieutenant Uhura got out of the turbolift in officers' territory. Captain Kirk returned to the bridge alone. Yeoman Rand glanced up from her conversation with Lindy, then looked away, afraid to meet his gaze.

"Lindy, would you excuse us?" Kirk said. He spoke loudly enough for everyone on the bridge to hear him. "Yeoman Rand, I spoke to you in an unpardonable manner this morning. I criticized you when I should have been complimenting your dedication. I apologize."

She stared at him in silence.

"Would you come with me, please?" He had no particular destination in mind; he simply found a corridor in which they could walk. "Yeoman, when's the last time you any sleep?"

"I... I..." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, sir. I overslept. That's why I was late."

"Maybe the question I need to ask is how long did you work." She remained silent. "All night?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I tried to finish ---"

"Yeoman, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you aren't very useful if you're too tired to get the right size uniform out of the synthesizer ---"

"I didn't ---!"

He heard protest and anger in her voice, but she cut herself off quickly.

"You didn't what, Yeoman?"

"Nothing, sir."

He sighed. She was still flinching. "There's such a thing as being too conscientious. There's such a thing as wearing yourself out before you've even gotten started."

"I'm sorry..." she said.

He felt like cringing himself. He could not figure out how to talk to her. "You don't need to apologize for being conscientious. I don't think I'm a tyrant --- I don't try to be. But sometimes you'll have to work two watches straight. Maybe even work around the clock. I won't apologize when I ask that of you. I'll hand you troubleshooting jobs that I expect you never to mention again, and like as not I'll forget to give you credit because I'll forget I gave them to you. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," she said, her voice feathery.

"There are times when you'll have to work harder than you've ever worked before." He noticed her ironic smile, which she repressed almost instantly. "But outside those times, you're going to have to use your judgment."

"I did use my judgment!" she said, flustered.

"Your judgment told you to stay up all night working on a job that didn't have to be finished for three months?"

"You said, 'As soon as you can, put together an appointment schedule for me.' My judgment told me that I have to answer to your judgment. Whether it's poor or --- I mean, I'm not familiar with your judgment."

"I see." They reached the observation deck. Kirk idly opened the shield to reveal the stars.

Rand gasped.

"It is quite a sight, isn't it?" he said. "Sit down, we'll talk for a few minutes." He gestured toward a chair where she would be able to see outside.

"But your schedule ---"

"I still have a good fifteen minutes left of my appointment with Doctor McCoy. I shouldn't have snapped at you about that, either." He grinned. "He thought he'd found a clever way to get me in his clutches long enough to make me take my physical. Sit down."

She obeyed.

"I was thoughtless yesterday," he said, "and I was... unnecessarily harsh with you this morning. I apologize, and I hope you'll forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive, Captain."

"I think there is --- and I think you ought to convince yourself that you have the right to be treated as a sentient being. Your feelings matter, too."

"I'll try, sir." She answered quickly, firmly: he suspected she was saying what she thought he wanted to hear.

"Did you make an appointment to talk to me?"

Her pale face burned. "No, sir. I... forgot."

"Tell me a little about yourself."

She gazed at him, straightforward, deliberate. Then she looked away and said quickly, "There's nothing to tell, sir. I got out of school. I joined Starfleet."

"Your family?"

She hesitated briefly. "My parents are dead. They were just ordinary people, with ordinary jobs."

"Sisters? Brothers?"

She said nothing.

"Pet goldfish?"

She nearly smiled.

"That's better. Well, Yeoman, you're an enigma. Too bad the Foreign Legion was disbanded."

"I don't understand what that means," she whispered.

"It was a military organization, several centuries ago. People joined it who... didn't want to be asked questions."

She looked away, partly to avoid his gaze, partly to see the stars. The orientation of the Enterprise turned the galaxy into a great diagonal slash, eerie against the blackness.

"Never mind, Yeoman," he said. "You're an adult; you have a right to your privacy. But if you ever feel you need someone to talk to..." She did not reply. He rose. "We'd better get back to the bridge."

She followed him out, pausing to glance back one last time as the shield closed over the viewport.

"By the way," he said, "Lindy complimented your work in the strongest terms. Where did you learn design?"

"Here and there." About Ms Lukarian, sir ---"

"What did she want this time?"

"Dirt, Captain."

"Dirt ---?"

"Bridge calling Captain Kirk."

He hurried to the nearest intercom. "Kirk here."

"Sir, there's a subspace communication ---"

"Starfleet ---?" His adrenaline level rose. An emergency...? What would he do with the civilians? Or perhaps it was a message about Gary Mitchell.

"Not Starfleet, sir. It's a private craft. He says... he's a juggler, sir."

Kirk stared at the intercom. "A juggler?" He laughed. "Is Ms Lukarian still on the bridge?"

"Yes, sir.

"I think it's safe to assume the communication's for her. Let her take it. I'll be up in a minute." Still chuckling, he entered the nearest turbolift, gesturing for Rand to follow him. "You were saying, Yeoman. Dirt?"

"Yes, sir. The deck is too hard for Athene's hooves, and the corral doesn't give her enough room to move around. She'd like to put a layer of dirt on the shuttle bay deck ---"

"We don't have any dirt!" Kirk exclaimed. "What does she want me to do, deplete molecular storage to synthesize --- dirt? No, it's out of the question. A layer of dirt --- on the shuttle bay deck? It's ridiculous!"

"I've spoken to Commander Spock and Lieutenant Sulu and Lieutenant Uhura. We could do it." She outlined the proposal as they rode toward the bridge.

"No," Kirk said. "I want to stay in warp drive."

"But Athene ---"

"Athene will have to wait. A starship is no place for a bunch of animals in the first place." The turbolift doors stood open. His voice had carried all the way across the bridge.

Lindy, sitting in his seat, glanced back at him.

Still half asleep, Roswind dropped her robe on the floor of the bathroom. It was great to have the cabin to herself for a while. Sharing it with that wimpy little Janice Rand had been just about more than she could stand. Roswind smiled, thinking about how Janice had looked in that oversized uniform. That would teach her to get promoted over people with more seniority and more skills. Roswind wondered when the new roommate would move in. She wondered what the new roommate was. If she was green... maybe a Vulcan? That might be interesting. But, did Vulcans hibernate? They surely were not timid.

Roswind stepped into the shower and onto something warm and slippery. She shrieked and leaped back, shocked awake.

A large lumpy green creature nestled sleeping in the sonic shower. The mark of Roswind's toes marred the faint pulsating sheen of its translucent skin. Roswind could see its --- her --- internal organs moving and working.

"What are you doing in the shower?" Roswind asked, indifferent to the possibility of scaring her new roommate into hibernation. The being --- Roswind had not asked what her new roommate's name would be, or even whether she had a name --- lay quiet and silent. "You're worse than Rand --- she just didn't know what a sonic shower was. But you --- you think it's a bed!"

Feeling grumpy and badly used, Roswind went to the rec deck locker room for a shower. The place was packed with people getting ready to go on duty. Whenever a starship set out on an extended voyage, practically everyone on board signed up for some kind of exercise class: tai chi or yoga, martial arts from several worlds, beginning fencing (that was a new one), and even an obscure and esoteric practice whose name translated as "deep breathing" but which sounded to Roswind like nothing more than an excuse for people to shriek at the top of their lungs for an hour.

Within a few weeks half the people would have dropped out of classes and gone back to their usual sedentary ways, but for the moment the locker room was one big traffic jam.

Just how long am I going to have somebody sleeping in my shower? she wondered. If she's going to do this all the time, can I get away with filing a complaint?

Personnel looked askance at any frivolous --- or bigoted --- objection to a roommate of a different species. If the roommate emitted methane or some other noxious gas, if two roommates required widely different temperatures, or if one were allergic to the other --- Roswind wished she had not assured Lieutenant Uhura that she had no allergies --- then Personnel would grant a transfer. But a complaint that a new recruit had mistaken the shower for a bunk would bring nothing but a reprimand and a lecture on tolerance. So she grumbled, took her shower in the locker room, and snapped, short-tempered, at everyone who spoke to her all day.

The small theater on the recreation deck was nearly full. Captain James Kirk tried to accept his reserved front-row seat as a courtesy, but he felt on display. Turning around in his seat, he scanned the audience for Yeoman Rand, who he knew had put him here.

He found her in the back row, looking forward toward the stage --- and him. As soon as she saw him looking at her, she flinched and averted her eyes.

The rustle and hum of conversation increased. As he turned around to the front, Kirk made out disconnected bits: expectation, laughter, curiosity.

Commander Spock entered the auditorium. The shadows accentuated the angular planes of his face.

He took the seat beside Kirk's that had been reserved for him. He sat straight and stiff, his hands resting on his thighs, his expression one of studied neutrality. Kirk glanced at him, quizzically.

"Commander Spock."

"Captain."

"I didn't know Vulcans went in for frivolous entertainments."

Spock arched his eyebrow. "I was under the impression, Captain," he said, "that you had issued an order to attend."

"What? Certainly not. Where did you get that idea?"

"From your announcement, Captain."

Kirk thought back over his wording. He had not ordered anyone to attend. Neither had he thought to specify that attendance was optional. He had to remember that the officers and crew needed time to become familiar with him. They might all assume, as had his new yeoman Janice Rand, that he was a martinet who expected them to treat his most subtle hints, his offhand whims, as unbreakable orders.

"Commander Spock, when I give a direct order, I'll make it clear that it's a direct order."

"Very well, Captain." Spock remained in his seat.

"That means you don't have to stay," Kirk said.

"Is that a direct order, sir?"

"No, it is not a direct order."

"In that case, I will remain. I am most curious about Ms Lukarian's profession. Perhaps I misjudged her character. I wish to observe her performance. As well as that of the rest of her company, of course."

"By all means, then, observe."

"Thank you, Captain." The Vulcan glanced around the theater. "Though I would prefer to have been assigned a seat in the back. That way, I could observe both the performers and the audience."

"Why don't you relax, Mister Spock?" Kirk said. "You can observe the audience at the second show."

If Spock realized Kirk had made a joke, he gave no sign of it. "An excellent suggestion," he said. "Humans have so many quaint and contradictory beliefs. It is interesting to observe them under unusual conditions. Are you aware, Captain, that branches of the Flat Earth Society have sprung up on several worlds colonized by human beings?"

"No, I wasn't aware of that." Kirk wondered if Spock was pulling his leg, but that seemed rather out of character. "But I don't see how you can equate a vaudeville show with believing that the Earth is flat."

"Not the show itself --- the magic. Magic has been used to defraud, to engender a belief in the supernatural ---"

"Mister Spock," Kirk said with some asperity, "this is an entertainment, not a conspiracy. Are you expecting Lindy's company to set up a séance? To help you --- for a suitable fee, of course --- contact your dead great-aunt Matilda?"

"How did you know, Captain, that my mother's deceased aunt was named Matilda?"

"I ---" Kirk started to say that he and half the other adult human beings he knew had a great-aunt named Matilda; it have been a very popular name two generations before. Instead, he grinned. "Psychic, I guess."

The house lights flickered again. The audience settled. A spotlight flashed on center stage.

Amelinda Lukarian --- Lindy no longer --- gazed out, silent, aloof, somber. She wore a decidedly feminine version of an old-fashioned man's tuxedo: a white bodice, black fishnet stockings, a black coat, and topped off with a black top hat.

Kirk would have sworn the stage had been empty, even when the house lights dimmed. Amelinda had simply appeared --- as if by magic. He wondered how she created the illusion.

You're beginning to think like a Vulcan, Kirk told himself. Take your own advice: sit back and enjoy the show.

"Honorable members of the crew of the starship Enterprise." Onstage, the magician's voice took on a low and powerful timbre that sent an extra thrill down Kirk's spine. "Welcome to the first interstellar performance of the Warp-Speed Classic Vaudeville Show." She tipped her hat. "I am Amelinda, and I am a magician. I will show you illusion --- or I will show you a deeper reality. Only you can judge which it is."

She plucked a glittering object form the air. The audience murmured in surprise. The transparent blue disk caught the light, concentrated it, and flung it out again.

"The people of Tau Ceti II possess great mineralogical expertise. They crystallize their currency from pure sapphire," Amelinda said. "Jewels have transfixed the imagination of sentient beings since before history --- but some would say that jewels have powers of their own, powers that transcend even the imagination."

She held up the sapphire coin, grasped it with her other hand --- and it disappeared.

"My daddy used to tell me, a fool and her money are soon parted," Amelinda continued. "But you know how aggravating children can be. I always replied ---" She reached up and plucked another coin from nothingness.

Kirk found himself applauding along with the rest of the audience, except, he noted, for Commander Spock.

Spock leaned forward, intent on the stage. Two narrow parallel furrows creased his brow. Then, as if he had become aware of Kirk's scrutiny, his forehead smoothed and his expression regained its impassivity.

The applause stopped. The audience waited expectantly.

"It is, of course," Spock said in a normal tone of voice, "the same coin."

Kirk glanced sidelong at the Vulcan. Amelinda hesitated so briefly that Kirk was not certain she'd heard.

"It came in handy, my 'magic money', as my daddy used to call it," Amelinda said, "when I was little. There was a bully in school who stole money from anyone smaller than him. Whenever he tried to steal mine, I made it disappear."

She reached for the second coin; like the first, it vanished from her hand.

"The coin is still in her hand," Spock said.

"Commander Spock!" Kirk whispered.

"Yes, Captain? No evidence of phaser or transporter dematerialization. Therefore, the coin must still be in her hand. Unless," Spock said in a thoughtful tone, "it was a holographic projection."

"Shut up, Commander. That's a direct ---"

"House lights," Amelinda said.

Kirk looked up. Amelinda stood at the edge of the stage, glaring down. Her heavy iridescent hair gleamed, shoulder-length around her face, falling below her hips in back.

"House lights!" she said again. The power of her voice came from her alone, without the aid of amplifiers.

The house lights brightened.

"Commander Spock," Amelinda said, with perfect composure, "would you care to repeat your comment so the rest of the audience can hear you?"

"I said that the coin was a holographic illusion, or that it was still in your hand," Spock said.

"A holographic projection? That would be cheating." She held out her open hand. "And the coin is not in my hand."

"Your other hand," Spock said.

"The coin isn't in my hand --- or in my hand." Amelinda extended her other hand, open and empty.

Spock raised one eyebrow.

"We're lucky --- aren't we?" Amelinda said. "If my birthplace were Tau Ceti II, and I were one of its octomanual inhabitants: 'It is not in my hand, or in my hand, or in my hand...' Why, we'd be here all night."

The audience laughed with her.

She offered her empty hand to Spock. "I usually ask for a volunteer later on, but since you're so eager, Commander Spock, you can help me now."

Spock rose from his seat and sprang onto the stage.

Amelinda regarded him with a smile, accepting him as a worthy opponent. "You claim that I have only one coin."

"I said you plucked the same coin from the air both times," Spock said.

"I don't blame you for thinking that. Air is so barren. I wonder what we might find in more fertile fields? Hold out your hands."

Spock complied. Reaching up to his left ear, Amelinda plucked a coin and dropped it, glittering into Spock's outstretched hands.

The audience loved it. Jim laughed, impressed by Amelinda's audacity in inviting a Vulcan to watch her illusions at close range.

Amelinda plucked a coin from Spock's right ear. One after another, she pulled coins from Spock's ears and dropped the sapphire disks into his hands until there was no question of their being holographic projections. Each crystal hit the next, ringing with high, piercing tones. Spock watched, nonplussed.

"So much more to work with than air," Amelinda said. Then she blushed. "Sorry," she said, the only break in her stage presence. "Cheap joke."

Spock tried to hold all the coins, but one slipped from the double handful. It spun on the stage and rolled into the shadows. Ignoring it, Amelinda scooped coins from Spock's hands and pitched them into the audience until Spock stood empty-handed once more.

"Now they've disappeared for good," Amelinda said, "and even I can't make them return."

The audience erupted into applause. Amelinda swept off her hat and bowed low. Her hair fell forward, nearly touching the floor. When she stood again she flung it back, like a dark, iridescent cape and replaced her hat.

Spock started toward his seat.

The magician stopped him with her voice. "Not so fast," she said. "I have more work for my volunteer."

Two felinoids pushed a great box onto the stage. Clear glass molded in an open filigree pattern formed all four sides. The assistants spun the box and stopped it at stage center.

Amelinda opened it and rapped her wand against its solid inside. Kirk wondered where the wand had come from.

"An empty box." Amelinda waved the wand beneath it. "It stands high above the floor, it has no hidden escapes, no electronics. Mister Scott!"

Amelinda made a sweeping gesture. The spotlights flashed onto a circular mesh plate, which had till now hung unseen in the shadows over the stage.

"If you would be so kind as to explain this device."

"Aye," Scott said. "Tis a transporter-beam shield. No transporter can operate near that wee device."

"And it is fully functional?"

"I installed it myself," Scott said.

"Thank you. Doctor McCoy!"

McCoy joined Scott onstage.

"Do you have your tricorder, Doctor McCoy?"

"I do."

"Check the magic box --- for electronics, for anything suspicious."

"My pleasure." McCoy fiddled with the tricorder, causing it to emit beeps and whines. "Nothing," he said. "It's a perfectly ordinary box."

"Do you think so? Please set your tricorder to signal the use of a transporter beam, and place the instrument in from of the box."

McCoy did as she asked, then stepped back beside Scott.

Spock looked as if he wished he were somewhere else.

"And now, Mister Spock, if you would enter the box ---"

"Why would I wish to do so?"

"Because ---" By her second word, she had smoothed the edge from her voice. "Because, as before, I have nothing up my sleeves." She pushed her sleeves to her elbows. The muscles of her forearms were clear and well defined. She turned her hands over to show that they were empty.

She reached toward Spock, offering to escort him. He pretended not to notice her hand, but he did climb inside the box. He wore an expression of bemusement.

Amelinda closed the box. Spock stood within the transparent latticework walls. The lights shifted and changed, reflecting from the glass, obscuring all but the vague outline of Spock's form.

"Now I'll secure him."

One of the felinoids loped forward with a carrier full of swords. Amelinda chose one, placed its tip against the floor and leaned on it till it bent like a fencing foil. She released the tension and it sprang straight.

She thrust it through an opening in the filigree.

The audience gasped.

"Silence, please," Amelinda said. "You mustn't disturb my concentration. It could be... dangerous."

At the level of Spock's chest the sword's point protruded from the far side of the box, plainly visible when the assistants spun the box. The changing lights sparkled on the sharp metal. The magician chose a second sword and slid it through the lattice. Soon a dozen swords penetrated the box and the science officer's shadowy shape.

"By normal means, no person, nothing, could escape. Some would say no one could survive."

The assistants spun the box a third time. The changing lights washed over their fur and over the glass, dappling them like light on water.

Amelinda withdrew the swords from the box and flung them clattering onto the stage. She reached for the latch, hesitating, letting the tension build.

She flung open the door. In the same instant the lights steadied. Kirk blinked, dazzled. A figure stood inside the box. Amelinda reached in and took his hand.

Leonard McCoy stepped from the magic box and into a moment of stunned silence. Kirk glanced to the side of the stage, where Scott still stood watching. Cheers and applause crashed over the stage like a wave. Amelinda and McCoy both bowed.

The lights faded and they were gone.

All of Roswind's friends had gone to the vaudeville show, but she had to wait for tomorrow's performance because she had not been able to get a seat for either of tonight's shows. It was all the fault of her new roommate; if Roswind had not had to take her shower in the locker room, she would have had plenty of time this morning to reserve herself a place in the theater.

She returned to her cabin. Her new green roommate showed no sign of coming out of the shower. Roswind got angry, and then became concerned. Lieutenant Uhura had warned her not to scare the being into hibernation, so what had she done first thing? She stepped on her. Then she yelled at her. Roswind tried to convince herself that she could claim not to have bothered the strange being, but the marks of her toes remained.

The being's superior was bound to call soon to ask why she had not reported for duty. Perhaps by then the bruise would have healed.

Roswind hurried to her cabin to get changed. Not only had she gotten shore leave at Starbase 13, she had finally gotten a ticket to the vaudeville show. It was about time she got her turn.

She opened the door.

She shrieked.

Green slime covered the floor, and the nauseating odor of decomposing regeneration gel permeated her cabin.

She spent the next several hours cleaning up the residue of the green "roommate," while other people enjoyed themselves at the show.

Roswind knew she had been had.

Uhura sat in the darkness of her cabin, her old harp in her lap though no sound came from it. She put the harp aside and sank down into the silence.

At first she did not reply to the knock on her door. But it sounded again, and then a third time. The harsh noise broke into the quiet she sought.

She activated the lights. How could she explain sitting alone in the dark to any of her shipmates? They would think her ridiculous.

"Uhura?" Janice Rand said. "Uhura, please let me in. I'm worried about you. Are you all right? Are... are you mad at me?"

"Come," Uhura said. The door slid open. "Of course I'm not mad at you, Janice."

Rand remained in the corridor, watching her.

"Come in, please," Uhura said. "I was thinking about something. I didn't hear you knocking at first."

Rand stepped gingerly across the threshold. "I didn't see you at Lindy's show."

"I didn't go."

"Are you all right?"

"Yes," she said, wishing Rand would stop asking. "Why were you looking for me?"

"I wanted to tell you," Rand said. "I've been thinking about what you said. I've been thinking about it a lot. And I've decided you're right."

"Right about what?"

"About the commission. About testifying."

"That's wonderful, Janice," Uhura said sincerely. "You should be very proud of yourself for making that decision. It took bravery."

Rand blinked. "I don't think I'm very brave."

"Why did you change your mind?"

"Because of you. No, that's not quite right," Rand said quickly when she saw Uhura's expression. "I don't mean I'm going to testify because you think I should. I mean I'm going to testify because it's the right thing to do. You stuck up for me, even though you could have gotten in trouble. Nobody ever, ever stuck up for me before. Nobody ever stuck up on Saweoure for people like me, either, but now I can. And I'm going to. I want to be as strong as you are. Someday. I'll start by telling Captain Kirk what I told you. Every other place I've ever been, people used their power to make things easier for themselves. Even if it hurt someone else. But Captain Kirk is different. He's like you. He does things because he thinks they're right, even if they might hurt him."

"You're much stronger than you think, Janice," Uhura said.

"It's funny. I'm scared --- but I'm happy, too. I feel like I can do anything! She spread her arms as if to take in the universe and did a quick pirouette. "Know what else?" she asked in a conspiratorial voice.

"What else?"

"I'm going to let my hair grow. And then I'm going to do something fancy with it. I was never allowed to, on Saweoure. But now I will."

Despite herself, Uhura smiled.

Chapter 1

"Entering standard orbit, Captain."

"Anybody else here with us?" The man in the pedestal seat barely glanced at him, everything was routine thus far and the helm officer had long ago earned the trust of his captain and his shipmates.

"No, sir. Sensors show clear."

"Very well, Helm. Steady as she goes."

As Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu started to turn back toward yet another M-class planet and its large cratered moon swimming on the big viewscreen at the front of the bridge, the turbolift doors whooshed open and another crewmember entered the bridge.

Now this was a much more interesting sight, from the top of her elaborate basket-weave hair, the beautiful face, the gorgeous red-clad body, all the way down every inch of her long shapely legs to her black boots. Not for the first time, he wondered how long it took her to do her hair every morning. Surely, she didn't sleep with it like that, did she? He didn't think any man on the crew could say for certain; while she certainly wasn't icy, indeed, quite friendly and popular with almost everyone onboard, everybody knew she had eyes only for the captain.

As for the captain, well, he seemed to have eyes for any and every humanoid female who wasn't in a Starfleet uniform, preferably in nothing at all...

Still, Sulu could enjoy the view as the female yeoman quickly glanced at the viewscreen as she always did whenever she came onto the bridge and then strode to the middle of the bridge, just a hint of sway in her hips, naturally drawing his eyes to the black-stocking-encased legs. There was something --- though we wouldn't be able to put it into words even if someone held a phaser to his head --- she did to her uniform that no other female crewmember seemed to be able to do, though he supposed he might admit --- again, if someone held a phaser to his head --- that Lieutenant Uhura sometimes came close.

Beside him, Sulu could sense the navigator also turning to follow the sight as Yeoman Janice Rand handed her tablet to the captain. James T. Kirk glanced down at it without really reading it, then signed it, implicitly trusting his yeoman to have checked and double-checked the figures before presenting them to him. Kirk handed back the tablet and then turned to his science officer.

"Any signs of the dilithium, Mister Spock?"

The Vulcan looked up from his screen, its glow making his face look greener than usual. "Ypsilon Gamma Three has a particularly powerful and wide-spectrum radiation belt, Captain, accompanied by violent ion storms. While the radiation belt is harmless to us in orbit or to the natives on the planetary surface, it attenuates and diffuses sensor signals by over eighty-seven-point-two percent. Sensors register the presence of dilithium but cannot locate it with any degree of accuracy."

"Where are the natives?" Kirk asked. "The ones who use dilithium as jewelry?"

"The Indefatigable did not determine the source of the dilithium, nor the quantity available. The dilithium obviously comes from this planet, but again the sensors cannot locate the source with any degree of accuracy."

"Where did the Indefatigable make contact with them?"

"The Indefatigable was here approximately one-point-three-four-seven planetary years ago, Captain. Since the Gammans have a nomadic culture, it is highly unlikely they would still be at the same location. I would estimate their annual migration to cover approximately three-thousand-two ---"

"Mister Sulu," Kirk cut him off, turning toward the helm officer, "program two probes, spiral search pattern from the Indefatigable's coordinates."

"Inadvisable, Captain," Spock said. "The radiation belt would affect the probe's communications the same way as the sensors. Even if the probes found the Gammans or the dilithium, they would not be able to relay that data to us."

Kirk turned back to his science officer. "Suggestions, Mister Spock?"

"Since the radiation belt also renders the transporters ineffective, the landing party will have to go by shuttlecraft. Logic would suggest having the landing party perform a low-level reconnaissance from the shuttlecraft, below the radiation belt. That way only one sortie would be required."

"Very well, Mister Spock." Kirk stood up. "You and Doctor McCoy will accompany me." His eyes surveyed the bridge crew and came to rest on the helm officer. "Mister Sulu, you'll pilot the shuttlecraft and act as security chief."

Kirk's eyes returned to his science officer. "Mister Spock, would you consider this a dangerous environment?"

"No, Captain."

Kirk's eyes turned back to the helm officer. "Mister Sulu, I believe two men should be adequate." His eyes then continued to sweep the bridge, coming to rest on the dark-skinned communications officer.

"Lieutenant Uhura ---" he began, then his eyes moved to the other woman, standing behind Uhura's chair. "Yeoman Rand," he began again, "communications. Work out a set of short signals with Lieutenant Uhura. Something that can get through the radiation belt."

"Yes, Captain," both women replied in unison. They had done this before; the two of them worked well together.

"Okay, people. The shuttle bay in one hour. Mister Spock, Doctor Grigs, if you'll join me in my ready room," Kirk finished, turning toward the turbolift. He then turned to his chief engineer. "Scotty, you have the conn."

"Aye, Captain." The engineer replied without looking up from his console.

Kirk took another step toward the turbolift and then turned back, glancing first at his yeoman, already huddled in conference with the communications officer, then at his science officer, and then finally at the helm officer. "Mister Sulu, make sure your security detail is humanoid." He glanced again at Rand and then back to Sulu. "And for balance it might be better if one of them is a woman."

"Yes, Captain." Sulu had already been running down a mental list of candidates for this --- What did the old-timers call it? he thought. Oh yes, a "milk run". He'd been wanting to give some of the younger ones some field experience, and this looked like the perfect opportunity. Yes, he quickly decided, I know just the right people. One rookie and one veteran, just in case things --- what was that phrase? Oh yes, just in case 'things go south'. He made a mental note to ask Pavel Chekov where that phrase came from --- if anybody knew, it would be the navigator. Though he'll probably claim it was an old Russian phrase, just like "milk run"...

Making his decision, he keyed it into the comp, confident that computer would find them and deliver the message.

A large brown-striped furred form followed Kirk and Spock off the bridge. Normally the Enterprise's chief geologist would have been part of the landing party. However, someone at Starfleet headquarters had somehow managed to overlook the fact that Doctor Grigenstennaj was a two-hundred-kilogram --- downright petite by the standards of her race --- carnivorous felinoid. By the time the oversight had been discovered, the Enterprise had left Starbase 7 and it was too late to get another geologist.

Everyone had agreed that it would be best if Grigs stayed aboard the Enterprise while the landing party made contact with the natives, instead of immediately introducing the carnivore to their herds --- and vice versa. Spock would take on the additional duties.

Hopefully, the Vulcan's pointed ears would prepare the natives somewhat for the felinoid's even more pointed fangs and claws.

Chapter 2

The Federation Constellation-class starship floated in space, oblivious to the presence of any other vessel in orbit. Watching the image on the viewscreen, fuzzed out as an unavoidable side-effect of their own cloak, was about as exciting as watching a Remusian stonebush grow. The starship had done nothing since appearing in the system an hour earlier and entering orbit inside that of the planet's large moon.

Suddenly the image altered as a smaller object, barely visible in the fuzz, detached itself from that of the starship and began to move off.

Commander M'Tel whirled around in his command chair. "Weapons! Target the shuttlecraft!"

"Commander, we cannot fire without uncloaking," the weapons officer reminded him, without even bothering to look at his console. "Even with the planet's radiation belt, the Federation ship could not help detecting us. We must remain cloaked."

M'Tel muttered an oath under his breath. So close to the Neutral Zone --- and on the wrong side of it, at that --- his orders were very explicit, and he knew them well, without needing a junior officer to remind him. He was to avoid detection at all costs until the dilithium mine was established. Then, and only then, would he be able to claim self-defense if the Federation interfered. Thus, they'd cloaked as soon as they'd detected the approach of the Federation ship and, despite the increased energy requirement, would remain cloaked until it left.

But if the shuttlecraft were to be destroyed inside the planet's radiation belt, or even on the planet's surface, the Federation would have no way of knowing it was not an accident...

He whirled the other way in his chair. "Inform Centurion S'Ken he has company on the way."

"Impossible, Commander," the communications officer said. "Federation sensors would detect any signal powerful enough to penetrate the planet's radiation belt. They would know there was a cloaked ship in the star system."

Muttering another oath under his breath, M'Tel watched helplessly as the Federation shuttle began its descent toward the planet.

"Centurion S'Ken's party is fully armed, Commander," the weapons officer reminded him, causing M'Tel to swivel around in his chair again. "Unless the Federation is sending a full combat team, which would be against their so-called Prime Directive, Subcommander S'Ken should be able to eliminate any exploration party on the surface."

"True," M'Tel mused aloud, clenching his fists in his lap. "And any deaths down there could be attributed to the natives. Some of them are quite warlike. Almost like us." Letting out something that was not quite a chuckle, he straightened in his chair. "Very well. Centurion S'Ken knows his orders. We can leave the Federation landing party in his hands. Maintain Alert Condition Three."

Sitting in the passenger compartment of the shuttlecraft Copernicus, Lysette Jourdain looked out the window and the dark storm clouds streaming past. Less than six months after joining Starfleet, and look where she was now! Going down to an alien, unexplored planet! Well, practically unexplored --- the survey team from the Indefatigable had barely touched down.

And going down with --- she glanced forward --- Captain Kirk himself! The youngest man to command a starship in Federation history! The hero of Axanar and Gioghe! Why, the man was practically a legend in his own time! And Mister Spock, the best science officer in Starfleet! Well, he is a Vulcan, so what'd you expect?

And the rest of the landing party? Well, if they're going down with Captain Kirk, they have to be the best, she told herself. So does that make me one of the best? she wondered, glancing around the cabin.

Her immediate superior, at least for this mission, Mister Sulu was up front, flying the shuttlecraft. The chief medical officer, Doctor McCoy, was with Mister Spock, hunched over an array of instruments. Williams, the other security man on the mission, was sleeping in his seat, a seasoned veteran conserving his energy. Jourdain envied his calmness and wondered how many away missions she would have to go on before she could sleep on the way down. And the captain's yeoman... Jourdain didn't know much about her, but she appeared awfully young for such a responsible position. If anything, she actually looked younger than Jourdain.

As if sensing Jourdain's eyes on her, Janice Rand got up and moved to stand beside her, bracing herself on seats on either side of the aisle.

"This is your first away mission, isn't it, Jourdain?" Rand said. "Nervous?"

"A... a little," Jourdain admitted. "You're right, it is my first away mission. But I expected to beam down, not riding down in a shuttlecraft." Just then a jagged bolt of lightning lit up the sky outside, and she flinched involuntarily, clutching her armrests.

"Don't worry," Rand smiled reassuringly, sitting down beside her and drawing one knee up to her chest just as another bolt of lightning lit up the sky, casting dancing shadows inside the shuttlecraft. "Mister Sulu hasn't crashed a shuttlecraft in, oh, it must be at least two months now."

"Really?" Somehow, that didn't sound very reassuring, especially as the shuttlecraft chose that moment to lurch and rock from side to side. Jourdain's hands instinctively tightened on the armrests.

Rand's smile widened and she patted Jourdain's hand. "Actually, I don't think Mister Sulu has ever crashed anything. And that's going all the way back to his first tricycle."

Jourdain managed to smile. "Thanks, Yeoman Rand."

"The name's Janice."

"Lysette." Jourdain could feel herself relaxing --- a little. "Yeo... Janice, do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Ask away, Lysette." Rand smiled disarmingly. "But I may not answer."

"What was it like for you on your first away mission?"

"Hmmm... My first? I don't know if I can remember that far back." Rand settled back in her seat, crossed her legs, and pulled down the hem of her uniform. "But I am glad we're going down in uniform this time. Some planets have strange dress habits, and some of them itch. Or worse," she wrinkled her nose, "they smell. The ones made from cured animal hides, I mean."

Jourdain smoothed out her own garment. "Yeah, I read about some of those." She gave a little shudder. "I mean, killing animals just so we could wear their skins, and ---" she shuddered in her seat "--- and eat their flesh!"

"Oh, even our own ancestors did that," Rand said, giving her uniform one final adjustment. "before the invention of the synthesizer. And it's still done on many planets, even within the Federation." She looked past Jourdain at the clouds streaming by the window. "If we stay with the Gammans, we'll probably have to do that here. But don't worry, Doctor McCoy won't let us eat anything that might be harmful. And we've got you and Sleeping Beauty over there ---" a nod of her chin indicated Williams "--- to keep anything harmful from eating us."

The two women shared a quick laugh, though Jourdain, still nervous, patted her phaser to ensure it was still on her belt.

"Was it like that, Janice? I mean, on your first away mission. Were there any wild beasts?"

Rand sighed inwardly. The kid just wasn't going to be deterred. "Well, the food was better than what we can probably expect here," she began, brows furrowing as she thought back. "And as for wild beasts, well, wild might describe them but I wouldn't call them beasts." Her brows furrowed in thought as she took a deep breath. "We'd found a remarkably Earthlike planet. Captain Kirk, Mister Spock, Doctor McCoy, and I, along with two security guards, beamed down. The planet was almost deserted, except for a group of three-hundred-year-old children..."

Jim Kirk listened with half an ear as Spock and McCoy engaged in their favorite pastime --- arguing. Sensing movement behind him, he turned his head to see his Yeoman moving to the back of the shuttlecraft cabin. Watching her sit beside the young security guard to put her at ease, a small smile came onto his face as he thought about how far Janice Rand had come herself. He could still remember her first day as his yeoman, a scared little girl who started at shadows and flinched at his every word. He'd only been in command of the Enterprise less than a week and, in a way, they'd grown into their jobs together. He now relied on her as much as he did on Spock and Bones.

"Captain!"

The Science Officer's voice brought Kirk back to the present. "Yes, Mister Spock?" he asked, leaning in to peer at the screen.

"The biggest band of Gammans on the continent are gathered in this valley." The Vulcan indicated the spot on the screen just above the confluence of two rivers. "From the numbers I estimate there is approximately an ninety-eight-point-one percent likelihood that this is the tribe the Indefatigable contacted."

Kirk looked at the map on the screen, then at the scale beside it. "They apparently haven't gone as far as you estimated, Mister Spock." He then looked past Spock at Doctor McCoy. "Bones, it appears our Vulcan science officer is not as infallible as we thought."

McCoy made a minor production out of getting his medical tricorder out. "Well, Jim, he is almost due for his annual physical," he said, stretching his drawl out even more than usual.

"Once we are back aboard the Enterprise," Spock said, "I will endeavor to make time in my schedule to accommodate your primitive and barbaric rituals."

"Mister Sulu!" Kirk called up to the cockpit. "Do you see Mister Spock's coordinates?"

"Yes, sir. That small clearing to the east looks like a possible landing site." A blue dot flashed into existence on the map.

"Agreed, Captain. The intervening ridge separates it from the main encampment, yet it is close enough to be convenient."

"Very well. Mister Sulu, put us down." Kirk swiveled in his seat as the shuttlecraft made a gentle bank to starboard. "Yeoman Rand!"

She looked up immediately from her discussion with the other woman. "Yes, Captain?"

"Inform the Enterprise we're about to land and send them our coordinates."

"Yes, Captain." She got up, said a word or two to Jourdain, and returned to her station.

As Yeoman Rand contacted the Enterprise, Captain James Kirk looked about the cabin of the shuttlecraft and the members of the landing party. Everything and everybody looked ready but... Have I forgotten anything? the question nagged him, as it always did.

"Yeoman," he said when she had finished her communication, "you wouldn't have by any chance brought any coffee with you?"

"Certainly, Captain." She reached under her seat and retrieved a thermos, passing it across to him with a smile on her face.

He uncapped the thermos, filled a cup, drank deeply, and sighed even more deeply. "Someday, Yeoman," he said, replacing the lid, "you're going to have to tell me how you make this coffee."

"Now, now, Captain. A woman has to have some secrets." She gave him a wicked smile. "Otherwise, you might decide you could do without me."

"Hardly likely, Yeoman." Looking toward Rand, Kirk missed the wide smile on McCoy's face.

Chapter 3

"Brrr! It's freezing out here," Janice Rand said as she stepped down from the shuttlecraft, wrapping her arms about her body and stamping her feet, before turning up the thermal control on her uniform.

"That is incorrect, Yeoman," Spock said, looking down at his tricorder. "The air temperature is eleven-point-three-two degrees above the freezing point of water."

"Chekov would call this a nice spring day in St. Petersburg," Sulu remarked conversationally to cover the adjustment of his own uniform. Kirk and McCoy chuckled, while turning up their own thermal controls. Spock merely raised an eyebrow as he looked up from his tricorder to Sulu, apparently having adjusted his uniform before coming outside. The Vulcan normally kept his thermal control turned up aboard the Enterprise when he was not in his own quarters.

As the heater in her uniform began to take effect, Rand looked around. Mister Sulu had set the shuttlecraft down precisely in the center of the clearing, which was covered in knee-high grass. The two security guards, Jourdain and Williams, were still making a perimeter check. On opposite sides of the clearing, they were both circling in the same direction, like the hands on an old-fashioned analog clock.

Something just beyond Jourdain caught Rand's attention. Seeing that the officers were still occupied with officer things, Rand walked toward it for a closer look.

Despite the chilly air, the flowers appeared to be in full bloom. She moved even closer for a better look.

Rand had never seen flowers quite like these before. She bent close and took a sniff. She certainly had never smelled their like.

She wondered whether they would make a nice addition to the little flower garden in the arboretum aboard the Enterprise. When the head botanist had learned Rand had an eye for colors and patterns, he'd drafted her into helping there. Even though it meant putting in time in addition to her regular duties, she enjoyed the colors and patterns of the various exotic flowers, and she always tried to collect something from every planet the ship visited.

Not only did she like the flowers, they seemed to like her. There was one in particular which wouldn't let anybody other than Rand or Sulu feed it. That wouldn't have been a problem with most plants, but this particular one, a Weeper plant she called Beauregard, happened to be carnivorous. It had a nasty habit of trying to take the hand off anyone who tried to feed it, but it always knew when she was there, and greeted her with a soft purr.

The same plant, which Sulu for some inexplicable reason of his own insisted on calling Gertrude, had had actually identified the salt vampire, which had come aboard the Enterprise when they had visited M-113, though neither she nor Sulu had known it at the time.

Rand had actually been the first one to see the creature when it came aboard wearing the form of a crewman, though of course she hadn't known it at the time. Taking on the form of a crewman, it'd followed her into the arboretum, before Beauregard scared it off. Shortly afterward she'd been the one to find the first of its victims aboard the Enterprise. She remembered being terrified at the time, unable to do anything more than stand petrified, staring down at the body while Sulu got on the intercom to report it.

"Yeoman Rand!"

The voice broke into her reverie, causing her to start. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she turned toward the voice. "Yes, Doctor McCoy?"

"Are you here on a sightseeing excursion?"

"No, Doctor." Rand felt her cheeks reddening. Behind McCoy, Sulu had an amused look on his face. He was as much interested in exotic fauna as she was, but he hadn't been caught dawdling.

"Then come along. We're not here to smell the flowers."

"Right away, Doctor McCoy." She hurriedly finished scanning the flowers with her tricorder, recording the readings for further analysis when she had the time. If there was nothing harmful then she might be able to come back and grab some samples to add to her garden. Snapping shut her tricorder, she half ran to catch up with the others as they walked down a trail into the forest.

"... kilometers away from the main encampment," Spock was saying as he read his tricorder. "Small work parties in all directions, the nearest four-hundred-ninety-one-point-four meters to our left and closing slowly."

"Phasers on stun!" Kirk hissed under his breath. "But don't fire unless attacked!"

The trail opened onto another small clearing in the forest. On the far side, a small party of Gammans were doing something to the trees. Some of them held woven baskets while others plucked something from the trees and deposited them into the baskets. A pair of sentries stood with wooden bows, but their casual attitude suggested that it was a mere formality.

Despite their seemingly casual attitude, they spotted the landing party as soon as they emerged from the trees, bringing their bows up. At their shouts the other workers dropped their baskets and brought up their own weapons, bows or short wooden spears.

The contact team from the Indefatigable had done their job, however. With their tricorders doing the translations, they made friendly contact and were soon invited back to the main encampment. Word of the visitors quickly spread, and they were joined by other work parties returning to the camp.

The trail they were on sloped down until it met a river and then followed its meandering path until it opened up onto the broad alluvial plain where the Gamman tribe had made its winter camp.

The camp was not what any of the Federation people had been expecting. The Indefatigable's recordings had shown crude tents made from the hides of the Gamman's herdbeasts. Instead, they saw the beginnings of a village, comprised of crude but stout wooden huts, surrounded by fenced-in pastures for the herdbeasts, animals roughly the size and shape of Earth cows. A knacker's yard was set a little apart and a tannery was even further away, presumably downwind most of the time. About the only thing missing were cultivated fields.

There was more building going on. There was a pile of logs along one side of the big clearing, some of them still with branches attached, though people were at work removing them.

The Gamman men were only somewhat shorter than the human norm --- only the very tallest equaling Lysette Jourdain, the taller of the two Starfleet women --- though quite a bit broader in the chest and shoulders. Despite the chill, many of them were stripped to the waist. The women were shorter still and quite slender, rather well proportioned except in the chest. Rand thought she'd had more in that area when she was thirteen and still on Saweoure.

Despite their shorter stature and slimmer build, the women were working alongside the men, working just as hard, apparently doing an equal share, though none of them were stripped to the waist.

"I thought the Indefatigable said these people lived in hide tents," McCoy remarked.

"You are correct, Doctor," Spock answered, bending over his tricorder. "For a nomadic culture, fixed buildings are impractical. However, this seems to be the beginnings of a winter camp." An eyebrow rose. "Fascinating. I am detecting evidence of previous structures in this area. The most recent ones date to last year."

"They build a camp every winter?"

"The evidence would indicate so, Doctor."

"Why don't they just stay here all year round?" Rand asked, then regretted it a moment later as the Vulcan science officer launched into a lecture about nomadic cultures needing to follow their herds from one seasonal grazing area to another.

She wasn't the only who didn't need the lecture. "That's enough, Spock," Doctor McCoy snapped. "I think we've got the picture."

Spock raised an eyebrow at the interruption. "I don't believe I've presented any visuals, Doctor. However, if you would like ---"

"Gentlemen," Captain Kirk broke in. "I believe the official welcoming party is here."

Even though much of the food preparation was done in a single communal kitchen, the entire tribe did not eat the evening meal together. That would have been impossible in any case, as some people had to stay with the herdbeasts while others were on sentry duty, watching for both wild carnivores and marauding tribes. The away team managed to stay together, eating with the tribal chief and his extended family at a long trestle table set up outside his hut.

Most of the Gammans sported simple pendants or bracelets holding rough-cut clear crystals resembling quartz.

The Gammans were good hosts, plying the away team with various dishes. Despite her comment aboard the shuttlecraft about eating animal flesh, Lysette Jourdain found herself enjoying the meal. Spock, on the other hand, stayed away from the animal flesh, restricting himself to the vegetable and fruit dishes even as his eyes seemingly catalogued every piece of the quartz-like crystals adorning their hosts.

Teela, the chief's daughter, seemed to be particularly attentive to Captain Kirk's needs. She was a pretty girl --- young woman, Rand quickly corrected herself. By human standards, Teela looked like a preteen girl, with hardly a hint of breasts mounding her leather garment. By Gamman standards, she was a young woman, old enough to know what she was doing. And judging from the way many of the Gamman men looked at her, apparently quite attractive.

Watching --- and listening to --- "Jeem, try this," and "Jeem, have more of this," memories of Miri came pouring into Rand's mind.

Miri was one of the three-hundred-year-old "children" on the planet Rand had visited on her first away mission. The "girl" had developed a crush on Captain Kirk and had considered Rand a rival for his affections. Eager to please, she'd done anything Kirk had asked her to do.

And, Rand was ashamed to admit, at the time she'd also considered Miri as a bit of a rival, though she'd tried hard not to show it.

As a result of an experiment gone awry in human life prolongation, aging had been slowed down tremendously for children but the disease killed the adults. Puberty brought on the onset of the disease. The away team --- with the exception of the Vulcan science officer --- had all contracted the disease and had but days to live.

That perhaps had been the most frightening incident in her career, when Miri's jealousy --- as a young woman, she'd known of Rand's feelings toward the captain, even if none of the men had been aware of it --- led to the "children" stealing the communicators and then kidnapping Rand. And when Captain Kirk had come to rescue her, they had beaten him, drawing blood. Rand had feared almost as much for him as for herself.

Eventually, Kirk had convinced Miri and the others that they --- the Enterprise personnel --- were trying to help. He got the communicators back, Doctor McCoy found the cure, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Had they? Rand wondered how Miri and the others were doing. She made a mental note to try to find out, as soon as she got back to the Enterprise, though she also realized she might have to wait until they reached a starbase.

Of course, there really had been nothing between Captain Kirk and Miri. When Rand had remarked to the captain as they were leaving the planet that Miri really loved him, he'd responded that he never got involved with older women. Unfortunately, that didn't mean that Rand had the field to herself...

"More silar?" The Gamman man to her left showed her a large gourd, and then started to reach for the wooden cup beside her plate.

"No more, thank you," Rand said, leaning back as the back of his hand threatened to brush her breast.

She'd already had enough of the fruity beverage to know she shouldn't have any more. She hadn't really been paying attention, but Doctor McCoy had seemed impressed with the way they fermented berries inside the gourd and then distilled the result. While both the doctor and the captain seemed to like the drink, Rand didn't. It wasn't the taste --- the berry juice was quite tasty --- but the alcohol was beginning to do things to her head, and stomach.

Sometimes, Rand thought that the discovery of alcohol was a necessary step toward civilization, at least for carbon-based lifeforms. More likely, it was learning how to produce alcohol. After learning how to do that, stuff like harnessing electricity was probably child's play, eventually leading to space travel and warp drive. She would have to ask Mister Spock about that, one of these days.

She realized she had to be drunker than she'd thought, if she was contemplating discussing with Spock the rôle of alcohol in civilization.

Or perhaps it wasn't just the alcohol. There was a bit of an uneasy feeling in her stomach, and she hoped it wasn't her stomach swelling against her uniform. Still, she'd had enough and she merely toyed with the food remaining on her plate.

"Captain, I believe I've had enough," Jourdain said, pushing away a half-filled plate.

"Same here, Captain," Rand said, glad she hadn't been the first.

Kirk, with Teela all but sitting on his lap, waved a hand in dismissal.

After a little discussion, the chief detailed one of his sisters, if Rand remembered the family relationships properly, to show the two women to where they were to spend the night. Jourdain was a little unsteady on her feet, and Rand ended up putting an arm around the taller woman's waist to keep her steady.

Fortunately they didn't have to go very far, as the Gamman woman took them to a smaller hut behind the chief's. The hut was surprisingly warm, considering that it was constructed of wood and had no apparent source of heating. Bedding consisted of thin mattresses of woven reeds and cured animal hides. Much to Lysette Jourdain's surprise --- and more importantly, to her relief --- they didn't smell too bad. But they were a little scratchy, something she hadn't considered before. After making sure the two Federation women had everything they needed for comfort, the Gamman woman gave a small curtsy and took her leave.

Rand sat down on one of the pallets. "You know, I'm feeling a bit queasy myself."

"Do you think it was something we ate?" Jourdain stretched herself out on the other pallet, on her back. "Or drank?"

"I don't know," Rand said, unslinging her tricorder and carefully setting it down beside her pallet as she thought about it. None of the men seemed to have shown any signs of discomfort, and she had seen Doctor McCoy surreptitiously scanning all the dishes with his medical tricorder as they were served, before diving into the nonsynthesized food with gusto. "I saw Doctor McCoy checking everything before we ate it. And if someone wanted to poison us, why wouldn't they target Captain Kirk first?"

"To get rid of his escort?"

"Then why me and not Williams?" Rand lay down and stretched out.

Chapter 4

Lysette Jourdain couldn't sleep; her stomach was still feeling a little queasy. Rolling over onto her side, she saw that Janice Rand also seemed to be having a similar problem. Throwing off her covers, she got up to her feet. "I think I'm going to go for a little walk," she said, gathering up her uniform and putting it on. "You want to come with me?"

Rand merely made a noncommittal noise but made no effort to get up.

The temperature had gone down during the evening; Jourdain didn't need to use her tricorder to know that it was now nearly freezing. Raising the thermal control on her uniform and making sure her phaser and communicator were on her belt --- one could never be too careful on a strange planet --- she stepped outside.

She'd initially planned on walking around the entire compound but the cold, despite her uniform's heater, soon proved to be too much. After walking past two quiet huts, she was just about to turn back when she heard laughter. Heading toward the sound, she found two Gamman males sitting beside a small fire in front of a hut, half of a bird still warming on a spit.

The Gammans spotted her when she came into the circle of firelight, coming to their feet. They were of a height, neither one coming up much past her shoulder. The Gamman on the other side of the fire invited her to join them, picking up the spit and offering it to her.

Her stomach lurched at the thought of eating anything else, even if it was the same type of bird she'd enjoyed at dinner. Perhaps, especially if it was the same type. She was still politely declining the offer when the nearer Gamman held out a liquid-filled gourd.

She hesitated a moment, feeling her stomach continue to churn. But then she remembered their mission to establish friendly relations with the natives. And what could be more friendlier than sitting down and sharing a drink?

Accepting the gourd and taking a cautious sniff, she hesitated. It was silar, the same potent beverage that had been offered at dinner, distilled from berries fermented in the gourd. It wasn't the most potent drink she'd ever sampled --- her friends had chipped in for a bottle of Saurian brandy on her last birthday, just before she'd enlisted in Starfleet --- but it definitely would make her top five. After tasting it she'd left her mug unfinished. However, deciding that she couldn't upset her stomach any more than it already was, she raised the gourd to her lips and took a big swig.

It went down her throat like liquid fire, making it abundantly clear why the Gammans weren't cold sitting outside. They probably didn't even need the fire at all. She coughed and sputtered as she lowered the gourd, which seemed to amuse the Gammans.

The drink had a totally different effect when it hit her stomach, settling it as instantly and effectively as anything Doctor McCoy might have in his hypospray. Lifting the gourd to her lips again, she took another swallow, slower this time. It her stomach and she could feel its warmth spreading over her body. And something else, a tingling warmth that had little to do with temperature. She passed the gourd to the other Gamman as he moved off the rock he'd been sitting on and made a minor production of offering it to her.

She sat down and turned on the tricorder's translation function as the Gammans resumed eating, again offering her some of the bird. The Gammans were startled when the box hung over her shoulder made noise, and even more startled when it translated her reply into their language.

Once they became accustomed to the tricorder's translations, the Gammans included her in their conversation, asking questions and answering hers, though she had to frame her answers in terms they would understand, explaining that she lived on a big ship that sailed from place to place. Some Gamman tribes used small sailing ships, though they never sailed out of sight of land. She continued to decline offers of food, though she seldom passed up a drink when the gourd came her way.

She learned that Vonz and Tark were half-brothers, a year apart. Their mother --- who had died two summers ago --- was a member of this tribe, while their fathers were men she had mated with during the various summer intertribal meetings. Though many women found permanent mates from within the tribe, this was not an uncommon practice and the progeny of such unions were taken in by the mother's tribe with no stigma attached to what some cultures still considered bastardy. Sometimes the woman would later form a permanent bond with a man in her tribe, who would then rear the children as if they were his own.

As she took another drink and passed the gourd to Vonz, his hand brushed against her breast, his fingers cupping her mound as if to verify that there indeed was something there under her uniform. It had been clear from the way they had been looking at her as they ate and drank that both Gammans were intrigued by her breasts. Jourdain had always considered herself merely average in this department, but she had noticed that she had more there than any of the Gamman women. The potent drink had started to loosen her inhibitions and she decided there was no harm in satisfying their curiosity. That is, if they would satisfy hers in turn.

Both Gammans laughed when she made her proposal, or rather, when the tricorder translated her proposal into their language. When they saw that she was serious, they rose to their feet. As Vonz began to undo his trousers, Tark gestured her inside the hut. In the light spilling from the fire, she could see that this hut was even more sparsely furnished than the one she'd been given to share with Yeoman Rand, barely containing anything more than their weapons, a change of clothes, and two rough straw-covered pallets.

Starting to have second thoughts, she turned back toward the door but Vonz was blocking the way. Then Tark was behind her, his arms around her as he cupped both her breasts with his hands. Not hard, but in an exploratory way, as if trying to determine how much was her and how much was her unfamiliar garment.

Vonz moved in on her from the front. Capturing one of her hands, he brought it to his manhood, holding it out in front of him.

Back in the women's hut Yeoman Janice Rand was also finding it difficult to sleep. Having removed her uniform, gotten onto the pallet, and pulled the covers over her, she was tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable.

Even though her eyes were closed, Janice Rand was finding it difficult to sleep, her stomach still churning from dinner. She probably shouldn't have drunk so much of the native fermented fruit beverage. Maybe she should go see Doctor McCoy; surely he would have something in his hypospray to counteract the effects.

No! He'd just think her a silly little girl. After all, he and the captain had drunk more of that potent brew than she had, and they hadn't seemed to be affected by it. Rolling over, she tried to make herself comfortable.

Through closed eyes, she imagined herself working with the captain. Once her duties were done and she prepared to leave, he stopped her.

"Yeoman, there's one more thing I need for you to do."

"Yes, Captain?" She turned back and was surprised to see him holding a bottle of something.

"An effort like today's deserves a little reward," he said, coming toward her.

Was he offering her a drink? As flattering as it was, she also knew it was totally inappropriate for her to have a drink with him, alone in his quarters. "Captain?"

"Sit down, Yeoman. It's Saurian brandy, and I dislike drinking alone." He got two glasses and started to pour.

She'd heard of Saurian brandy, of course, but never had the opportunity to sample it. But the professional part of her mind kept telling her that it was inappropriate. "I'm sorry, Captain," she said, "but I think I should be going."

"Sit down, Yeoman," he repeated. "Do I have to make it an order?"

It might be inappropriate, but what could one little drink hurt? After all, how long had she been wishing that their professional relationship could blossom into something more?

She sat.

He handed her a glass, and sat down beside her. His thigh touched hers, and she slid a couple of centimeters away.

She relaxed a little when he didn't seem inclined to pursue her. She looked at the glass and its contents, took a careful sniff, and then an experimental sip. The drink was everything she'd heard, and more. It went down smooth, without burning like some other drinks did. And it tasted better than she'd expected, much better. It warmed her from the inside, and she felt the tiredness starting to evaporate.

She drank the rest of her glass.

"The night's still young," he said, offering to refill her glass. A corner of her mind noted that he'd only taken a sip of his own brandy.

"That's okay, Captain," she said, setting her glass aside and getting up to her feet, somewhat slowly.

"The night's still young," he repeated, also rising to his feet. He seemed to have no trouble controlling his limbs, as he added, "Janice."

She couldn't remember him ever calling her by her given name. At least, not when he was himself, not split into good and evil parts by a transporter malfunction.

The professional part of her mind was still fighting to keep control. "I really should be going, Captain," she heard herself saying even as her legs tried to move her toward the door.

The brandy caused her legs to stumble.

He caught her before she could fall, lifting her back to her feet even as she clutched him for support. Then he was pulling her toward him, pressing her lips against hers. She felt her breasts flattening against his chest.

Against his manly chest.

The professional part of her mind told her she should be resisting him. Her body, influenced no doubt by the brandy, told her mind to shut up.

The body won. Her arms tightened about his body as she savored the feel of her breasts flattening even further against that manly chest.

Then he was lifting her, carrying her, then laying her down on his bunk.

The professional part of her mind made one last attempt. "Captain, no!" she said, attempting to push him away, though her voice came out barely more than a whisper. "No!"

He was too strong for her, pinning her arms to the bunk as he threw his body atop hers. "You know you want it, Janice," he said, before again pressing his lips against hers.

Her body did want it. "Yes, Jim!" the words came from her mouth. "Oh, yes!" She stopped struggling and concentrated on responding to the kiss. One leg worked free from under his body and twined about his.

She was pretty sure he started undressing her first. She did remember hoping she wasn't betraying her inexperience as she fumbled a little with the unfamiliar seals of a man's uniform.

Then they were both completely naked and his hands were exploring her body even as her hands returned the favor by exploring his.

"Janice," he murmured into her ear, then kissed her again. He then began working his way down, kissing her chin, throat, collarbone. "Janice, oh, Janice," he repeated, then kissed her left breast. He repeated her name before kissing her right breast. Then he drew the nipple into his mouth, suckling and nibbling lightly.

"Oh, yes, Jim!" she all but screamed out, wrapping her arms around him and holding him as tightly as she could.

He bit down harder. After working on one breast for a while, he switched his attention to the other one.

Jim Kirk was also finding sleep hard to find. He'd known Leonard McCoy for years, sailed with him, and knew no finer doctor. He'd trust Bones with his life, and had done so more than once. If Bones said the women were suffering nothing more than indigestion, there was no reason to doubt it. But Kirk wasn't sure that's all it was.

They'd all eaten the same food, drunk the same drinks. So why wasn't everyone sick? Why just the women? Why just the two youngest, least experienced members of the away team?

Things had definitely gotten past mere curiosity. Even though Lysette Jourdain had never considered herself xenophobic --- xenophobia was cause for an instant dishonorable discharge from Starfleet --- but she wasn't exactly a xenophile either. While she had what she considered normal curiosity, she had never been intimate with any alien, male, female, or otherwise. Now she didn't remember who had pushed whom down onto the straw pallet --- she vaguely remembered removing her uniform when the sealers had bewildered the half-brothers, though she distinctly remembered making sure her communicator, phaser, and tricorder were secure --- but here she was, on her back, with a Gamman at each breast, their hands all over her chest as they examined in detail the largest pair of breasts they had ever seen even as they tasted her, licking and suckling her nipples. It wasn't a rough examination by any means. She couldn't remember a lover ever being this gentle with her --- let alone two of them. Their big hands were like silk on her breasts, their bites on her nipples barely more than nibbles.

She found the gentleness intoxicating, even more so than the drink, making her want even more. Pulling the two Gammans off her, she rolled Vonz onto his back, sitting astride his thighs and taking his manhood in her hand, finding it had grown bigger and harder than when she'd first examined it. Like the rest of his body, it was shorter and thicker than the humans she'd experienced.

Wanting to experience this, she moved up his body and lowered herself onto him. The breadth of his manhood was initially daunting, and she was pleasantly surprised when she found she could take him in all the way without any pain. And it obviously wasn't painful for Vonz, judging from the encouragement he gave her amid other sounds of pleasure when she began a slow rhythmic pumping with her legs.

Tark squatted beside her, catching her breasts and fondling them as she rode his half-brother. It seemed the most natural thing to do when she reached out and picked him up to cradle him against her chest so he could suckle at her right breast. She didn't even wonder about his lightness as she sped up her pumping.

Jourdain was still climbing toward her peak when Vonz screamed and climaxed, arching his back as he shot his seed into her sex. Lifting herself off him, she laid Tark down beside his half-brother and mounted him, his manhood fully erect from suckling at her breast. Picking up the gasping Vonz, she cradled him to her chest until his mouth closed on her left breast and then her legs resumed where they'd left off.

Jourdain and Tark reached their climaxes nearly simultaneously. But as pleasurable as that was, it wasn't enough to satisfy her. Pulling Vonz away from her chest, she was delighted to see that he had gotten erect again from suckling at her breast. Laying him back down on the pallet, she quickly mounted him, picking up Tark and holding him to her chest again.

She discovered that by tightening her inner muscles she could delay Vonz's climax until she was ready, and she was rewarded with a second climax, more pleasurable than the first. But as delightful as that was, she still wasn't ready to call a halt to the proceedings. Upon dismounting Vonz she was disappointed to discover that he, however, had had enough, barely conscious after his second climax. Leaving him on the pallet she laid Tark down beside him and mounted him.

With nothing to obstruct him he reached up and cupped her breasts, gentle caressing and fondling them while her legs again resumed their rhythmic pumping. Wanting a little more stimulation than his soft ministrations, she moved one of his hands so that both hands were on her left breast and then cupped her right breast with her right hand. Lost in the sensation building up inside her, she didn't wonder why her dainty hand was fondling her soft mound harder than both of Tark's big hands were fondling the other, indeed, harder than the Gammans had done all night despite their obvious fascination with her breasts.

Jourdain let out a scream of pure joy as her third climax hit, far more pleasurable than either of the first two. Raising herself off Tark, she collapsed to the pallet between the two Gammans, completely spent. And quite sated, as she had not been in quite some time.

Janice Rand's hands were now moving under the covers, stimulating her most sensitive parts. "Oh, Jim," she murmured, imagining --- not for the first time --- that it was Jim Kirk's big strong hands caressing her, fondling her breasts, stroking her thighs. The difference was that tonight, for the first time, her dainty feminine hands were stroking her body harder than Kirk's strong masculine ever had --- or could --- stroke a woman's body. "Oh, yes, Jim," she murmured again, sliding a hand between her thighs and into her damp sex. "Oh, yes, Jim!"

Thirty minutes later she slumped back onto her pallet, completely exhausted. She was sound asleep when Lysette Jourdain returned and slid under the covers on her own pallet. A minute later she was also asleep.