Title: Coals of Fire
Author: Jane (jat_sapphire)
Contact: [email protected]
Other Headings, Disclaimer and Notes, see PrologueAct II: War by Other Means
Spock and Doctor McCoy entered the transporter room, and Spock said "Energize," to Lieutenant Kyle, who began the beam-up. Captain Kirk materialized, and Spock knew even before he was entirely on board that he was angry: the set of his shoulders, the angle of his head, gave him away as much as the dangerous expression in his eyes when the beam released him and he moved off the transporter pad lightly, like a hunting animal."Meeting go well, Captain?" asked McCoy, and Spock raised an eyebrow at the unnecessary question.
His captain took a deep breath and let it go. "Let's go to your office, Bones . . . Spock." His eyes went from one man to the other, growing less feral only by an incalculable degree.
"That bad, huh?" McCoy continued as they went to the lift.
"No. Well, not good." Then there was no more conversation until they were in Sickbay, where Jim nodded at Nurse Chapel and strode right past her, McCoy and Spock following. In the office, he dropped into a chair and looked up at them. "Sit down, gentlemen."
"I'm getting you a shot first, and me too," said McCoy, turning to his cabinet.
"I'm on duty . . . or I will be."
"It's medicinal." McCoy handed Jim a small glass with a dose of clear liquid in it. Jim, apparently believing the doctor's rationale, took it in a single swallow. Spock had identified the alcohol by its smell and doubted profoundly that it appeared on the manifest of Sickbay's medicaments.
Jim, however, looked down at the glass and up at McCoy, and then said, "Yes, 'medicinal' is the right word."
"Scotty's best batch, he says." McCoy lifted his own glass and sipped, then coughed.
"God help us," said Jim. "We'll have to tell him to stop using - well, whatever he *is* using. GGet real grain."
"So," McCoy drawled, "tell us. What happened? What's got under your skin?"
"Matt Decker . . ." Jim bit off what he had been going to say.
"Yes, Captain?" Spock prompted, curious. All he knew about Commodore Decker was the information in his public file, including his stint as an instructor at Starfleet Academy when Jim was a cadet there. He could not tell whether Jim considered Decker his friend.
Jim looked not at Spock but back at McCoy, who said, "Oh, go ahead and get whatever it is off your chest, Jim."
"Matt Decker," Jim said slowly, his diction precise, "has a stick so far up his ass that it is poking out the top of his head."
Through his surprise, Spock heard McCoy say, "No, but what do you *really* think?" and saw that both men were inexplicably grinning.
"Matt Decker," Jim began again, but now it was a game, "eats a book of regulations for breakfast every morning."
"With milk."
"And sliced Starfleet officer on top."
"Not you?" McCoy was incredulous.
"No. Well, I came in for my share of the Decker charm, but first it was his Science officer, just a kid really, Lieutenant Massata. He promotes them so young, Bones."
"You're a fine one to talk about being promoted young." McCoy grinned and raised his glass to his mouth again.
"I was ready. She isn't. She knows it." His mouth quirked a little; Spock saw that he was indeed relaxing, whether the drink had any influence on him or not. "She asked after you, you know, Spock. Read a paper of yours or saw a vid or something, wants your autograph, I think. She must have missed you at the reception. I'd hate to think how embarrassed she would have been if you'd been there when Decker hung her out to dry."
"Then it is as well that I was not," Spock answered.
Jim nodded, looking at the empty glass in his hand, tilting it in the light. "It was a bad moment. She was flustered, misspoke, got her facts wrong, and he reprimanded her right there in the meeting, in front of me - the captain of another starship - not to mention her fellow crewmembers."
"Is that what made you mad?" asked McCoy.
"No, mostly I got mad because I told him what I'd found out and he dismissed it. He's above learning anything through anonymous letters and . . . well, he said the source was biased and the information vague. Of course it's vague, I said, if it was definite I'd be acting on it already."
"I bet that went over well," McCoy said. "Especially the part about how you got the information."
Spock found that it disconcerted him to think of the number of people who now knew of Jim's relationship with the Ambassador. He raised his hands, steepled the fingers and then interlaced them - then, noticing the nervous movement, unfolded them and returned them to his lap. He looked up to find Jim's eyes on him.
"I told him exactly what I told you, Bones," he said, still looking at Spock. "That Ambassador Estellare had gotten into conversation with me and confided in me about those upsetting anonymous letters."
"Yes, I know," McCoy responded, and Spock felt relieved, and newly disturbed at feeling relieved. McCoy went on, "I just suspect Decker, like me, noticed that she waited a few days until *you* got there to decide to tell a Federation representative. That's not gonna be good for Decker's ego, which from what I've heard needs a lot of feeding."
Jim nodded. "I'd just forgotten about that side of him, Bones, he never showed it at the Academy, or not to me. Or I don't remember it."
"So the reason we're not hearing all this in the briefing room," said McCoy, "is that there's no official problem?"
"Right, so no investigation and no action plan needed." Jim had begun to look angry again.
"And when something blows up on Altair?"
Jim looked at the glass again, tipped it this way and that. "I don't know," he answered. "I get court-martialled for not stopping it?"
"Surely," Spock said almost involuntarily, "that cannot be a plausible response."
"Oh, don't worry, Spock, that ain't gonna happen," said McCoy, and Spock saw that although his words were confident, his face was troubled. "Because Jim's gonna do something dangerous and probably against regulations, and if he gets court-martialled, it'll be for that and not for sitting by while all hell breaks loose. So what'll it be, Jim? Decided yet?"
"No," said Jim, nevertheless putting the glass down on McCoy's desk with a decisive snap. "But I know what I have to do right now, and that is to go cancel the rest of the meetings I set up with the Altairians. By order of Commodore Decker." He stood. "I'll be on the bridge. A nice, official backdrop for my messages."
"Captain." Spock rose too. "Shall I discontinue my research on the goldenwood plantations on Altair Five?"
"No, finish it. The information could still come in handy." Jim was on his way out already, but paused in the door as the comm sounded. When McCoy leaned over and hit the button, Uhura's voice said, "Bridge to Captain Kirk."
"Kirk here." Jim had sprung back to the comm in what seemed a single step.
"We're being contacted by President Jiilau's secretary. The president wants to speak to you."
Jim glanced at McCoy, who backed away from the chair. Then Jim swung around the corner of the desk and sat, saying to Uhura, "I'll take it right here." He gestured for Spock to come around where he also could see the screen, and Spock obeyed.
President Jiilau's office, like the reception hall, backed onto the goldenwood grove and was lit by large windows; in contrast, most of the furnishings appeared to be deep red, especially the high-backed chair in which Jiilau sat. He looked rather small and dim against the raging color until he opened his mouth.
"Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise?" he said in a voice so deep that the speaker buzzed just a little at the end of each sentence.
"Yes, President Jiilau?"
"I have been told that you share my concern about . . . recent communications I have received."
Spock gathered that the president did not trust the security of this connection, and he might well be correct in his suspicion. Jim followed his lead, and said, "As well as communications received by another visitor to your world. I was concerned. I have orders now, however, to terminate this investigation from my end. I was just about to call your Intelligence Agency and cancel the meetings I had asked for."
The president's brows rose, and he was silent for a few seconds. "You must do so, of course, if you are so ordered," he said. "But I believe your overall orders include cooperation with requests from myself and my staff?"
"As far as possible," said Jim a little warily.
"You may be contacted by Intelligence agents in connection with our own investigations; you may answer questions, I trust?"
"Yes." Jim began to smile.
"Good. But my purpose in contacting you is quite separate from your meetings, which by the way our staff can cancel for you, if you wish."
"Thank you, President Jiilau."
"Mine is in fact a personal request."
"It will be my pleasure to do whatever I can for you," Jim said.
"All my life, as long as I can remember," said the president, and his voice was suddenly confiding, its deep richness softened, "I have wished to see the inside of a Federation starship. Now two of them are in orbit above me, and I still have not done so. May I take a tour of your starship, Captain Kirk?"
"President Jiilau, I see no reason why not. I would be happy to show the Enterprise to you."
"You are most diplomatic. Could we perhaps take a very short trip?"
"Is that wise, Mr. President?"
"Within this solar system, of course, Captain Kirk. Surely that is a very little distance for your starship."
"Within this solar system," Jim repeated slowly.
"Yes." The president stared intently from the monitor.
"Perhaps," said Jim, "we could discuss a short flight plan when you are aboard."
"That would undoubtedly be best. I shall look forward to beaming up within the hour, if you are not otherwise occupied."
Jim began to grin. "No, as it happens, now seems a very good time."
"So I thought. One of my staff will contact your quartermaster; is that agreeable?"
"Certainly."
"Then I shall say goodbye for a short while."
"Goodbye, Mr. President; it's an honor to assist you."
Jiilau nodded, and his image vanished.
"Quartermaster?" asked McCoy, which was also Spock's question.
"Well, well, well," Jim said, looking from one of them to the other, nearly laughing. "Yes, Bones, the quartermaster, because they'll need accommodations. Unless I'm very much mistaken, we're taking President Jiilau - and whoever he decides to bring along - to Altair 5. An unorthodox mind - oh, yes, he does have that!"
Spock looked in puzzlement at Jim's delight. "Will Commodore Decker not object?" he asked.
Jim, looking up at him, smiled slowly, with the fascinating look of boyish mischief Spock had not seen for too long. "We'll see, won't we? Eventually."
~~~~~
Aulua Jiilau beamed up with both his spouses, Niu and Strephon, an intern called Akino, and his secretary, Klaos. The Jiilaus carried hand luggage, so they clearly were not intending to leave for a while. *Oh, my, Decker's gonna have a cat,* McCoy thought. Meanwhile, everybody was making nice: Jiilau and Jim, whom McCoy imagined had not done more than shake hands at the reception, were complimenting each other's successes and measuring each other's eyes as if they were recruiting each other. Spock was chatting with the husband, or anyway doing his Vulcan imitation of chatting, which left McCoy to do his best with the wife. Niu Jiilau was a little woman, thin and ethereal, with enormous eyes and an unexpectedly deep alto voice. Amused, McCoy wondered whether she spoke low in her range to echo her older husband's deck-shaking bass, or whether the sound had something to do with the layers of wooden chokers, dark-stained and glinting, that climbed the curve of her neck."Can you tell me," he asked her, "what the devil is going on?"
She raised her chin, staring, and McCoy was surprised at the forceful expression such a small person could command. She shook her head, and her earrings swung and clicked against her chokers. "No," she said.
"No, you can't, or no, you won't?"
"No, Doctor," she repeated.
Strephon Jiilau came up behind her and put his palm on her lower back. She turned her head and gazed up at him.
"Niu, come and see the observation deck. Mr. Spock says the tour starts there."
It *was* the typical place to begin a ship's tour, but McCoy found it amusing that Spock should bring it up. When they all stood in the dim light looking up and out toward the stars or down and in toward the shuttlecraft bay, McCoy asked the question that had been in his mind the whole way down to Deck 17: "Don't you usually say that this is the most illogical stop on the tour, Spock?"
Spock was in the center of the narrow room, between Niu and Jim, who were seated on one of the ledges in front of the shuttlebay windows, and Strephon who was craning his neck to see Altair 6 through the high-set starport, while President Jiilau stood behind with one hand laid casually on his husband's shoulder. Both men turned to look at Spock.
"It merely seems odd to me," Spock said, unabashed at being the center of attention, "that visitors from a planet invariably want to come here and look back down at the place they have left, and which must be familiar to them, rather than investigate the unfamiliar spaces of the ship, which is surely the overall goal of the tour. But Mr. Jiilau expressed interest in seeing a place with windows, and this is one of the few areas of the ship which fulfils his criterion."
"I confess I didn't expect to find windows anywhere on the starship," said the president. "Now, of course, I understand that it would be a pity not to have access to this view."
"Sensors provide such a view," Spock said, "and it is available at any terminal to those with sufficiently high Security clearance."
"Security clearance," repeated Strephon, staring out the port, with something in his voice that McCoy could not quite identify. Strain? Anger? Sadness?
In a lower tone, though not quite so softly as to make it absolutely a private moment, the president asked, "Why did you ask for windows, Strephon?"
"Because without them, these metal rooms are too much like the prison," said the younger man, clearly, publicly, and with pain.
The whole group stood frozen. Then Niu slipped down from the ledge where she sat and crossed to her husbands, stepping between Strephon and the port. Her head did not clear the bottom of the transparent panel, and her face, as she turned it up to look at him, was level with his breastbone. "Look again, Strephon," she said in that oboe's voice. "Look down. That is the important thing, that globe, the home of hope."
"You are not looking," Strephon answered.
"No. I don't need a window. I will see it from every room in the ship because I see it in my heart. And," she smiled a little and disclosed a charming dimple whose existence McCoy would never have guessed, "because I could not see it through this high port if I tried."
Strephon smiled then, and smoothed her hair. "My wife," he said. "You are such an unexpected gift. Prison did me that favor, to bring me Aulua and then, with freedom, you." The president reached across and gripped his wife's shoulder, holding both spouses within the scope of his arms.
Again it was only partly a private gesture. McCoy marveled at how the threesome balanced intimacy and performance so effortlessly that watchers questioned neither their sincerity nor their awareness of the audience. It was like being in the front row seats for a very finely acted drama.
That instinct for good theater obviously ran strong in Aulua Jiilau, who let go of his spouses after a moment and turned, that intense gaze focussing on Jim. "The home of hope, Niu calls our planet, but for the moment, hope for me is on Altair 5," he said. "I must go there now, today, before official news agencies hear of it or the unofficial information source on my staff gives the news to his or her contact." He looked apologetically at Klaos and Akido. "In fact, my apprehensions are why my staff members must rely on your generosity: I could give them no warning and no time to pack lest my true destination be known."
"Why?" asked Jim simply.
McCoy had to give President Jiilau points for not being sidetracked by semantics. Out of all the possible references of Jim's question, Jiilau chose the one that would get most directly where he apparently wanted to go. "I have never really believed in delegating important tasks," he said, taking the few steps which separated them and sitting down next to Jim. "And, from the stories I have heard, neither do you. I have gotten, through channels into which I won't take you, a message from someone among the terrorists who have been threatening me, someone who is influential but unable to turn the tide of the movement he thought he was leading. He is willing to meet with me, to negotiate, to give me information about the others. I can't send anyone else to this meeting. I must go myself. Boridi - the name he gives - will not meet with anyone on my staff or any police or Intelligence officer."
"Does it matter so much what he wants or who he says he'll meet, if you know where he is?" asked Jim. "A team could retrieve him, and interrogate him - that's standard procedure on most worlds, I'd say." It was too much to believe, McCoy reflected, that Jim really had learned sense enough not to go straight toward the most dangerous option: he must be playing devil's advocate, or he figured he'd save the really foolhardy nonsense for himself.
"I could lie to him," the president admitted, distaste on his fine features. "I could take his confidence and abuse it. I could be unworthy of my position and my truest self. But I do not plan to do any of those things."
Jim looked at him with approval plainly written on his own face. Niu was very still, and Strephon's gaze moved from one of the men opposite to the other. Then his eyes, like McCoy's, went to Spock. McCoy wondered what the younger man saw - he himself could tell, from nearly two years of experience, that Spock was about to object to just about everything he'd been hearing.
"May I recap?" Spock asked politely. "Your correspondent admits to being a terrorist; he claims not to control other terrorists but to 'influence' them, and he demands that you leave your security arrangements and, indeed, your whole planet in order to put yourself completely at his mercy, at which point he has given you his word of honor to betray those he has been working with. Have I understood correctly that this seems an acceptable plan to you?"
President Jiilau looked up at Spock with no expression whatever, until Akino shifted restlessly; Spock, of course, neither looked away nor showed any discomfort. When Jiilau spoke, it was to Jim. "Your officers do not, I gather, share your skill with diplomacy."
"I wouldn't say that," Jim answered. "My officers do their jobs, which include pointing out drawbacks of proposed plans of action."
"And this plan," McCoy put in his oar, hoping he'd someday hear the last of having agreed with Spock, "has plenty of drawbacks."
"I trust Boridi," said the president.
"Why?" This time Spock asked..
Another expressionless silence. President Jiilau gazed past Spock at Strephon, and at last it was the younger man who spoke: "We knew him in prison."
Spock asked, "Was he trustworthy then?"
"I never trusted him," Strephon said.
"You never fought him," the president responded. Strephon's eyes fell. Niu took a step forward but did not speak.
"I would have - " Strephon began, and McCoy discovered that he was at the end of his tolerance for the Jiilaus' family psychodrama.
"Look, what's in the past is hardly the point," he said. "The point now is that you, Mr. President, are very important and that this smells like a trap. Even if this Boridi is sincere, can you assume that less trustworthy people are *not* going to know that he has arranged a meeting with you? Why in the world do you think your Security people would have taken such a dim view of your plan that you had to sneak on to a starship? Hell, you're practically a stowaway."
"Bones," said Jim in moderate reproof.
"'The point' - the real point - is in danger of being lost," said President Jiilau. "I did not ask for a committee meeting to help me make a decision. I have made it. In any case I am not accustomed to soliciting the opinions of random Starfleet officers. What I have asked you for is transport, not commentary. If you find yourself unable to give it, very well, but consider the dangers of *not* following through when I have taken such care to evade my watchers this time."
~~~~~
"You leave me little choice," said Jim with that mildness that Spock knew could burst into anger or shift into a smile."I meant to leave you none," answered President Jiilau steadily.
"Captain, this plan is illogical," Spock insisted. He stepped nearer to where Jim was seated, staring down at him. Intense apprehension, impossible to explain, rose in Spock. Jiilau's utter lack of reason in this matter was not the only source of his disquiet; Jim was wearing one of his more reckless expressions, but even that was not all. Without data, without logical argument, there was nothing he could do to alter the decision he saw forming on Jim's face, and there was no way to stop whatever private agenda President Jiilau was pursuing.
"We've done riskier things than this, Spock, and made them succeed." Jim had decided.
President Jiilau added, "As have I," and Niu flinched slightly.
"What does 'success' mean in this context?" Spock tried again.
"Do you know," asked President Jiilau, "what my advisors would count as success? My generals? Their idea of an acceptable plan is to locate Boridi's people and raze the area. In fact, one reason I prefer to do without my own security forces is that they are responsible to the Army, and in spite of my time as a general, I am not at all sure that they do not find me expendable. If I had tried to meet Boridi officially, both he and I would probably die of it, and the war that has just ended could ignite again."
"As it well may," Spock reminded them, "if you are kidnapped, injured, or killed in an unofficial meeting."
"Perhaps." Aulua Jiilau leaned forward, turning the glare of his charisma fully on Spock: his voice rumbled; his eyes were bright - but Spock was not greatly affected. The most charismatic being he knew was seated nearby, relaxed, resting in the decision by which all of them must abide. And he depended on Spock; he had said so. Jiilau's deep voice added now, "In any case, you may set any perimeter guards, take any precautions you like. I know Starfleet will not fire on the defenseless."
"Or even upon the defended, unless we have due cause," said Spock coolly. "We would take our best security precautions with or without your permission. But we have so little information on which to base our plans that I must still protest."
"Your concern is noted, Mr. Spock," Jim cut in, ending the discussion. "We can work out the details of our precautions on the way to Altair 5. Meanwhile, Mr. President, if you really want to see the Enterprise, we should move along."
On the way out, Akino clutched at the sleeve of Spock's uniform, delaying him. "Is this meeting really going to put Aulua - I mean, President Jiilau - in danger?"
"Acute danger, in my judgement," Spock answered.
"Well, do something! Can't you? Fix it? Prevent it? There's got to be something you Federation people can do!"
Spock merely looked at him, reluctant to repeat what he had just been saying so fruitlessly.
The young man threw his hands into the air and stepped back, scorn and fear mingled on his face. "If you're just going to *stand* there...!"
"No, indeed," said Spock, with ordinary restraint, "I am going to join the rest of the ship's tour, and I suggest you do the same."
They did, and found Jim just finishing his instructions to the bridge over the wall comm in the corridor - without surprise, Spock realized that they were already leaving orbit on their way to Altair 5. They also stopped to drop off Klaos and Akino in the quarters that had been prepared for them, with extra computer access, so that they could begin sending the appropriate messages to Altair 6 and coping with the replies and other correspondence. The Jiilaus saw the Auxiliary Bridge, some portions of Engineering, an assortment of recreation facilities, the Chemistry and Botany labs, and the Arboretum. There, the party separated and walked the narrow paths between tables and tubs crowded with greenery. McCoy and Strephon remained near the door of the big room, chatting idly. Spock found himself beside Niu Jiilau.
"Does this not seem odd to you?" she asked him.
"In what way?" he responded.
"As a reminder of a planet's surface - a type of greenhouse or garden - in space."
"Its recreational use is perhaps illogical. A great deal of what my shipmates do for recreation is illogical."
"What do you do?" She looked up at him with wide brown eyes.
Uncharmed, he did not immediately reply.
"I am a little bored," she added, one hand brushing the leaves of the nearest bush, as they walked past it, "and very apprehensive. Please speak to me of something . . . else. What do you do?"
Spock, son of a diplomat, answered, "I perform on the Vulcan ka'thyra; sometimes I choose to practice in the recreation room. Sometimes I accompany Lieutenant Uhura, who is a talented singer and musician. I play chess." When she nodded, he asked, "You know the game?"
"I know of it. I have rarely played. Strephon does, and Aulua . . . With whom do you play?"
Spock paused, and she looked up questioningly, and he proceeded. "I have programmed the computer to play chess at my own ability level. And the captain and I . . . have frequently played chess." They had not done so since four days before the onset of Spock's pon farr.
She smiled. "Aulua says that he learned to know Strephon's mind and heart across the chessboard. Has your captain learned yours? Or you, his?"
Spock looked down at the top of her head, reflecting that if there was a subject he would not by any means choose to discuss with the Jiilaus, it was his relationship with Jim. "Captain Kirk," he said, "is a talented strategist, and I have learned a great deal from observing his chess game. He has a clear sense of the potential costs of a given gambit which President Jiilau would do well to emulate." This perhaps stretched the truth, as Spock judged Jim's game to be as bold and intuitive - not to say reckless - as his command style.
Niu's step quickened; she did not look at the chrysanthemums on either side, or react to their bitter, musky scent. Her hands clenched into fists. "Mr. Spock," she said in clipped tones, "Aulua does nothing without understanding its potential costs. He does not risk himself in ignorance. His bravery is not foolish."
"Indeed?" Spock said without emphasis.
"*Yes,*" she insisted. "He has plans for every contingency. If your captain had denied him transport, if Boridi had refused to meet at all . . . if, now, he should fail to convince Boridi to give his information -"
"If he should die?" Spock asked.
"Yes. Even then. He knows how the media will react, how we may lessen the risk of war - yes! He is a great man, Mr. Spock. I love him, but I would not follow him only for love. I *believe* in him. I trust him to find the way. He is my leader." She looked up at him again, standing under the spindly sprays of an orchid, its shadow across her face. "I think you know just what I mean," she said.
Spock looked at the tracings of darker gray on her skin, like scars. He knew that Jim stood not far away in the direction they were going, with the president, near the rose bushes. He knew without looking - or rather, he could not stop checking for Jim's location with his peripheral vision, listening for his movements or his voice below any nearer sounds, so whenever they were in the same area he always knew where Jim was. Since pon farr, when everything and nothing had changed.
"Yes," he said to Niu.
~~~~~
Jim watched Spock talk to Niu Jiilau with the oddest sensation that he knew what they were saying, though they were out of earshot. He often thought, for all Spock's Vulcan reticence, that his gestures and stance gave away his thoughts about as much as anyone else's. Jim rarely found his first officer hard to read. For instance, not long ago Niu had asked something that Spock found intrusive. Now she had said something that fascinated and perhaps even moved him. They stood nearly under one of the arched buttresses that supported the ceiling, and the pinkish grow-light there came in patches through the struts, weirdly highlighting Spock's hair and his shoulder.Jim wished, briefly but sharply, that Spock would look up.
"My wife interests your officer," President Jiilau's low voice rumbled.
Jim thought it would be grotesque if Aulua Jiilau became jealous of Spock. Grotesquely wrong and deeply embarrassing. "Your wife is our guest," he said.
"Niu is a biochemist," said the president. "She has made a special study of goldenwood and is conversant with the new bioengineering developments in its cultivation."
This sounded like part of a media briefing; Jim waited for the president to give him the clue that would make sense of this conversation. Instead, Jiilau turned and took a spray of miniature roses carefully between finger and thumb, lifting it to his face to inhale the fresh smell of the small blossoms and new leaves. "Boridi," he said very casually, "suggests a meeting place in one of the experimental plantations, in fact the one in which the newest mature strain of goldenwood is growing."
Jim assumed, from his manner, that this information must be controversial somehow, but he needed Spock to explain it. He looked warily at the president, still enjoying the scent of the plant, and said, "We'll need specific coordinates." On second thought, Jim decided it would be wise to rough out the security plan just between the two of them, first. "We'll set a security perimeter, and depending on the area we should be able to put our people in sight of each other. Beyond that, road-blocks for ground vehicles. Shuttlecraft on flyover - "
"Stop!" Jiilau abandoned the roses abruptly. "Boridi will never agree to come to a site flooded with Starfleet personnel!"
*What happened to "set any security precautions you wish"?* Jim wondered, but decided the better part of valor was silence. Yes, definitely a good thing McCoy wasn't nearby. Jim cleared his throat and said mildly, "Mr. President, we must guard your safety."
"Captain, if Boridi refuses to meet me, there is no point in assuring my safety."
Jim could only shake his head in bafflement.
"I fought to hold this office for one reason," the president went on, "one reason only. And that was to make *right* the relations between Altair 6 and Altair 5. My presidency and my life are as nothing in comparison."
"I can't hold your life so cheaply," Jim said. "If you chose to approach me because you thought I disdained ordinary safety . . . " He paused, and shook his head again.
"No," President Jiilau said. "I never approached Captain Chang because the time was not yet right. I trust you agree that between you and Commodore Decker, the choice was obvious."
"Matt Decker is a fine officer, and a friend of mine," Jim protested.
President Jiilau smiled slightly and looked away, across the Arboretum, in silence.
Jim said, "We can sweep the area ahead of time for traps and third parties. Then we could vacate for a set period of time so that Boridi can arrive. Then we can reset the perimeter and roadblocks, start the shuttlecraft patrols."
President Jiilau did not respond, perhaps because Spock and Niu had just reached them; Jim smiled at Spock, knowing he would have overheard most of the negotiation, and said, "Mr. Spock will tell us that the odds of success are still far too low."
"The risk that Boridi will himself bring weapons or reinforcements is 47.8%," Spock said on cue. "There is a 62.9% risk that associates or enemies will follow him closely enough to evade our initial sweep, and a 15.4% risk that anyone will evade our security forces once they are in place."
"How do you compute your statistics, and what are you basing them on?" asked Niu skeptically.
Jim bit his lower lip, amused, thinking how often he had wanted to know the same thing. On the other hand, it clearly behooved him to support his officer. "Mr. Spock's predictions are uncannily accurate, however he arrives at the percentages in which he expresses them," he said, but couldn't resist another sidelong look at Spock, thinking, *even if you make them up! - which I've often thought you do* - and almost believed Spock could hear the thoughts, for he looked disconcerted.
He recovered quickly, though, and said, "President Jiilau, do you refuse to be more closely guarded? To take guards with you, as we normally would do ourselves in similar negotiations? Or to vouch for one or two of our ship's officers who could then accompany you to the meeting?"
"I must go alone," said Jiilau stubbornly.
"You will at least carry a communicator?" Spock pressed him. "We will maintain a transporter lock on you at all times so that you need only tell us to beam you up - we could give you an innocuous code word."
"I will carry the device if you insist," said the president, "but I doubt you will be able to maintain the lock."
"Why not?" asked Jim.
But it was Niu who answered. "You're meeting in New Grove? Aulua?" She turned to Jim, then to Spock, one hand a little outstretched as if she were pleading with them. "The new variety - it uses different minerals, and metabolizes more - goldenwood has always been difficult to use sensors on. For firewatch, even pest control . . . even life forms are hard to sense. The new strain is worse."
Spock nodded in agreement. "The literature points out the degree to which goldenwood was always sensor-resistant, and of course the effect is stronger as the quantity of wood increases."
"Recalibrate the sensors," Jim said.
"I shall do so," Spock replied. "The process would of course be more effective if I knew the chemical composition of the new strain."
Niu spread her hands helplessly. "An industrial secret," she said.
Jim thought of Rachandra, who was a collector of industrial secrets if he had ever met one. He wondered if their agreement over the anonymous letters would seem to her to reasonably include other information vital to resolving this situation, as she clearly felt her interests were threatened.
Silence had fallen; he looked up and found Spock's eyes on him, and his spirits lifted as they had in the observation lounge, and in Bones' office after first speaking to Jiilau. As they usually did when he could see his way ahead, could do something, and had Spock's help to do it. "Mr. President," Jim turned and got down to it, "please contact Boridi, negotiate for the security plans we've been discussing, and get the coordinates of the meeting place." A pause. "Will you?"
The dark head bent graciously, and the gray lips spread slowly into a smile: "I will."
~~~~~
Go on to Act III?