Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi, personal log, supplemental. I have now spent four days recovering after having almost been cooked to death by an ion storm in the Xi Velorum system. Commander Vistia Xe has exploited my vulnerable state to ambush me and promote me to full Lieutenant — I still have very conflicting feelings about that. Today I’m already done with my phys rehab and with my reading — finally got through Firin Deeo’s latest study on muon-assisted entanglement deconvolution, really fascinating stuff, gotta to re-read it. Diran and Sirti have suggested we meet at the Reddaurant for dinner.

Iskander stopped the dictation, put down the PADD, and rose from the small sofa. His promotion to Lieutenant had given him an access to a slightly larger quarter with a small lounge area — a quaint dark glass table, two low sofas, several cushions, all of which had already been decorated with his favorite mood-setters: a Newtonian cradle, a dissected old quantum beam retracer, a Betelgeusian perovskite, a tensegrity cupholder, and at the wall a fanciful and completely unpractical schematic of a transporter if it had been drawn in the style of XIth century Baghdad.

He stretched. He did still have some lingering pain, as the second ionic discharge through his body had left him with several deep-tissue burns, but all in all he was doing great. He walked to the mirror and straightened the brown crop top and the white capris he’d chosen to wear. He sighed and exited the room.

The Reddaurant was quite empty due to the early hour, being a bar more than a mess, so Iskander had no trouble in locating his two fellow engineers, sat next to the windows. Diran was still in uniform, slightly disheveled as always, while Sirti-nei-Plex was donning one of his suits. Iskander had trouble describing what Sirti-nei-Plex’s off-duty style was like: had he been pressed, he’d have said amphibious.

Out of the window, the familiar pattern of warping stars, elongated and rendered almost to lines by the phenomenon of Tziri-Cochrane diffraction.

They were both reading from their PADD. If Iskander knew anything about them, they were still working at something. Iskander disapproved, although he suffered from the same fatal affliction.

“Sirti! Diran!” He told them after having approached. “I hope I am not interrupting you.”

They looked up. Diran looked in particular a bit guilty, as they knew that Iskander liked to chastise them for being too work-focused.

“We were scheduled to meet now” answered charmingly Sirti-nei-Plex. “If I were to call this an interruption, I’d say it’s a justified and welcome one.”

“How about I fetch some drinks for the three of us” suggested Iskander, “and we take it from there?”

First the two younger engineers tried to fight the proposal — you’re recovering, we can’t burden you with fetching three glasses, and we’re here to celebrate your promotion, you should get spoiled by us — but Iskander had none of it.

As he came back with three drinks from the bar, the PADDs had not left the two engineer’s hands.

“So” asked Iskander putting the glasses on top of their PADDs in a very demonstrative way, “how’s life?”

“Our life? Why, that’s of no importance now! Congratulations on your promotion!” answered Sirti-nei-Plex raising his glass of algae kirbanx. “Lieutenant full grade!”

Diran agreed.

“Hrrmph” answered Iskander, toasted, and sipped his peppermint tea.

“One doesn’t need to be an empath to see you are less than happy” remarked Diran.

“I never took you for lacking in ambition, Lieutenant” commented Sirti.

“I am less than happy, and I am very ambitious, and call me Iskander off-duty” answered Iskander. “It’s just that my ambitions are all engineering-based. Climbing the hierarchy in the pursue of more numerous and shinier pips isn’t the way to build the best transporter room in the fleet.”

“You should refrain from committing more inexcusable acts of heroism, then” commented Diran. “You forced the senior staff’s hand to give you that promotion!”

Iskander smiled curtly.

“Next time I do something heroic that might get me promoted, I’ll try to die in the process and not painfully survive it.”

“The fact that you feel quite sincere in this moment is best left to a discussion with Counselor Sakar” said Diran.

“Doubtlessly” concurred Iskander.

The discussion followed quite effortlessly from there, jumping between light topics: Sirti’s music-playing, Diran’s family drama, the new color of the panels in the secondary Computer server room, Mir Durbus’ latest cinematographic discovery — she loved to tell everyone about the last movie she had watched, and was currently deep into neo-realistic black-and-white movies of the Inskivian art movement.

Iskander felt happy with his two companions — possibly the two most agreeable colleagues he had found in engineering. Diran had donned a very subtle rouge-a-levre for the evening and wore small quartz earrings — from a cursory look, Iskander evaluated that this was a I-have-small-breasts week for Diran (it was an open question for Iskander how Diran achieved their frequent metamorphosis: implants, fillings, binders, or a cosmetic quick trip to sickbay — who knew). For his part, Sirti-nei-Plex had to fetch a water basin and several time sponge his skin to moisten it: after a long day in engineering, usually he wanted to go back to his aquatic quarters, so Iskander appreciated the gesture of staying in open air for so long.

“Are you excited for our new mysterious assignment?” asked at some point Sirti-nei-Plex.

“I am convalescent” reminded him Iskander. “I have not asked Commander Durbus to fill me in, nor has she in any way offered the information.”

Diran genlty pushed their PADD, which had laid forgotten for quite a while, in the direction of Iskander.

“Just have a read of the title” they said.

Iskander sighed and looked at the PADD.

“Tellarite medical technology of 500 years ago?” he read. “That’s what we’re being given to prepare on?”

“Isn’t it at least intriguing?” nodded Sirti.

“I’ll say. What’s the assignment?”

“Did I say it’s a mystery?” asked Sirti. “It’s a mystery. Maybe not to the senior staff, but who tells us.”

“We know that we are on a course to Rellite, a pre-Federation Tellarite colony.”

“Isn’t it odd for such an ancient colony to request Starfleet’s engineering help?” wondered Iskander. “Established planets have their own engineering capabilities, they do not need to rely on a California-class ship.”

“Mystery, Iskander, mysteryyyy” repeated Sirti-nei-Plex.

“Right.”

“But it is odd” agreed Diran. “Yet, someone on Rellite asked, and someone at Starfleet Command has agreed that it is a sensible use of resources, so here we are.”

“Could you send me the relevant files, Diran?” asked Iskander.

“Why, Lieutenant! I thought you were convalescent! The thought of helping you to get back to work barely a couple of days an ion storm made you into the human version of a crisp is absolutely disconcerting to me!” said mockingly Diran.

“Ensign, you entirely misunderstand me! This isn’t for work — I am convalescent. I am just so lucky that engineering is my hobby.”

They laughed and decided to have a new round of drinks.

It ended up being a good night, with the mystery of the ancient medical Tellarite technology adjourned to tomorrow.

Lieutenant Junior Grade al-Kwaritzmi’s personal log, supplemental. The ship has arrived at Rellite, a century-old Tellarite colony, and apparently we have been contacted by the Planetary Representative of Rellite to the Federation Council. —

Iskander stopped and scratched his chin.

I meant, Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi’s personal log. Apparently the Councilor has requested several Engineering squads to be assembled and put at her disposal for goals that have not yet been revealed. Apparently I am to take care of one of the teams. Commander Durbus has ordered a meeting in twenty minutes for the Rellite Councilor to brief us.

The Rellite Planetary Representative to the Council of the United Federation of Planets was a short, gray Tellarite woman named Surblona Grinz. She was dressed in magnificent orange-and-blue robes, embroiled in white letters, and considered the Starfleet personnel with small, sharp, cunning eyes.

“I suppose that I must declare it is a pleasure to meet you” were the first words she said. “I suppose it is good to be diplomatic to those, such as you, who are not used to our customs.”

Sitting opposite her at the briefing table, in one of the USS Redding meeting rooms, were Commander Vistia Xe, Lieutenant Commander Mir Durbus, and Lieutenant Huv and Iskander: the XO and three engineers.

Iskander nervously looked at his crewmates. Mir Durbus and Huv seemed taken aback from such an introduction — while Vistia Xe, Deltan to the core, didn’t seem to be phased.

He had been born and raised on an old space station — one of the first deep-space human settlements, a joint venture between humans and Denobulans, and very much pre-Federation just like Rellite. Being such an early outpost, it had attracted a number of Tellarites: the al-Kwaritzmi’s neighbours had been Tellarites, and his first instinct had been to respond to the Councilor with a good amount of snark.

“We appreciate your tact” answered Commander Xe, well in control of herself. “But do not strain yourself on our account, Councilor.”

The Councilor stared quickly at Commander Xe.

“Someone has to make an effort” she replied.

“Quite. Now, if you could finally brief us on our mission parameters, we would be most appreciative” said Vistia Xe.

The Tellarite nodded.

“The… whatever your ship is called… has been requisitioned in order to assist with engineering infrastructure linked to our upcoming elections.”

Mir Durbus, as blue as always, seemed a bit perplexed.

“Your planet has been inhabited and civilized for 500 years. I’m astonished that your electoral infrastructure is not ready.”

“Our infrastructure is the most advanced in the galaxy — a sentence that no one has ever said about anything Bolian ever” replied the Councilor. “This limited ship couldn’t help us with anything on a planetary scale. It is a specific political party that requires assistance with building up its miserable, inexistant infrastructure.”

Mir Durbus’ color veered towards being a bit more blue than beforehand.

“One specific party gets Starfleet assistance?” repeated Vistia Xe. “That is unusual. Is it customary amongst Tellarites to arrange things thusly?”

“Hah” snorted Grinz. “Honestly, I am also a bit surprised that it has come to this. Starfleet is no stranger to provide help and relief to civilians — sometimes looking at the activity logs one has the feeling half of your ships are actually granaries — and it has taken a bit of word-wrangling to make the legal argument that assisting an unprepared political party in an election falls under civilian help. But the lawyers of this party have made a case based on the Rellite Accord of Joinder to the Federation, signed three months after Tellar Prime gloriously founded the United Federation of Planets, and the courts have agreed that the argument, unorthodox as it may be, stands.”

“And why couldn’t they get help on help? I’m sure that you have engineers” intervened Mir Durbus again.

“The organizers of this party don’t trust other Tellarites for reasons that I won’t bother you with. Affairs dating back to Shallash. They prefer the politically uncultivated and ignorant.”

“Wouldn’t it seem partisan? Starfleet can’t be seen favoring one political party” remarked again the Deltan, calm.

“I know as well as you do that Starfleet really cares about its operational independence, as if you didn’t fart as disgustingly as anyone else. That said, you shan’t worry your shaven head, Commander. The offer of Starfleet help has been extended to all other parties — they have had a laugh and said that they don’t need it. So you see — Starfleet isn’t favoring anyone: it is offering to everyone, and only one party is availing itself of you.”

“How very balanced of us” agreed the Deltan.

“All other political parties have clearly decided that a small ship such as this could do nothing good for them” added Grinz.

Iskander sighed and hrrumphed.

“They clearly had no hope,” he intervened, “that their Councilor would have any capability to secure a more impressive ship.”

Vistia Xe’s expression did not change even slightly as she squared him with her cool, calm eyes; but Mir Durbus seemed positively aghast at this breach of diplomacy from one of her engineers.

The Tellarite Councilor moved for the first time her gaze on Iskander.

“Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi” she said, quite surprisingly. “You grew up on Kera Fedox, right? Many Tellarites on that station. Has their sharp tongue rubbed somewhat on you?”

Iskander tried his best not to show surprise in realizing that the Tellarite had done some research on him. It was all openly available information, which anyone could read with a simple computer query, but why had she collected such intelligence?

And, if she had, he wondered, she wouldn’t have started with him, a lowly Lieutenant. Where had she stopped? Had she looked through the biographies of all members of Engineering? And, if so, why?

“The Tellarites of Kera Fedox have positively barbed tongues” he answered with a smile. “And, on that account, I want to compliment you on the solidity of your diplomatic training, Councilor, as I didn’t detect a single barb until now.”

At age seven, Iskander had started a fight with the Tellarite neighbour, Krina, by telling him that his insults were weak and inoffensive. It had resulted in a trip to the medical center to take care of a series of bites and tusk stabs. Orsos had been beyond himself with worry.

The Tellarite’s small eyes narrowed.

“How I wish I could waste the time by debating you a little bit more” she said. “But let’s go back to the assignment. We have requested three teams. Commander Durbus, Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi, and Lieutenant Huv will lead them.”

She produced three PADDS of Tellarite making and passed them around.

“I’ll summarize and then leave this cold starship” said the Councilor. “Commander Durbus has the most glorious task: assisting with building the conference room where the party is going to direct its campaign. You’ll find schematics in there.”

Mir Durbus scrolled on her PADD and gasped.

“How large is that thing? Is that gold?” she asked.

“Very, and yes. Don’t worry, most of it already exists, you just have to install modern technology — holoemitters, ODS connections, and so on — in there. During that, Lieutenant Huv is going to be building the communication capability in the background. Telemetry, data feeds, computers, servers, all of that sort of stuff.”

“I understand” said Huv, speaking for the first time.

“And Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi’s team… you’re going, apparently, to unfreeze the political candidate from his 300-year-old stasis. A political campaign needs a candidate, I’m told. Good luck to you all.”

Lieutenant Iskander al-Kwaritzmi’s personal log, supplemental. For the first time I lead a team on an away mission — although, far from being in an unexplored planet, it is on the old Tellarite colony of Rellite. I am slightly nervous. Councilor Grinz has requested directly to the Captain that the away teams get reorganized. The assignment of Lieutenant JG Sornia and Nurse Ghoshal is very rational and I can’t complain. I am however puzzled by the addition of Z’Xak. The addition of a large non-verbal spider with absolutely no social grace whatsoever seems a bit odd in the context on a Tellarite planet. That said, I am sure that they will work smoothly and the mission will be a success.

Iskander and his team — Sornia, Ghoshal, and Z’Xak — beamed down to a monumental square in the outskirt of the large city of Brarvar, on Rellite.

He looked around and for a moment contemplated the square. It was dominated by massive pilons in brutalist limestone, some more than 20 meters tall, cut in uncompromising shapes and arranged somewhat in an irregular circle; in their middle was a small garden of desert trees. The rest of the pavement was white alabaster, blinding in the sunlight of the desert planet.

The temperature was impressive, but nevertheless a number of Tellarites were walking around the square, going about their business.

Sornia sighed.

“This is warmer than I expected. Is the place far?” she asked.

Iskander peeled his eyes as soon as they had adapted to the brightness of the light. At the side of the square there were buildings in all directions — great and noble things like the square, built in a style that he knew was called late-Rellite celebrator, and their destination wasn’t hard to guess: the tallest and most decorated of all of them.

“It’s there” he said.

“It’s a shame they don’t allow us to use transporters into it” added Sornia.

“They made a request and we honor it” remarked Ghoshal, always positive.

Z’Xak, the large spider, had said nothing yet — which was perfectly normal. They looked around the square with their composite eyes, inscrutable, mysterious. Nobody could really know what they thought, and how they evaluated anything they saw. Yet Iskander knew that their home planet was almost completely devoid of cities — their species was almost entirely not sociable, and any building was purely functional and perfectly independent. This must have been completely alien to Z’Xak, and while they had spent a long time on Earth, one couldn’t know if they had in any way gotten used to the idea of erecting two houses next to each other.

“The request is unmotivated. Why shouldn’t we beam inside of their building?” insisted Sornia.

Iskander smiled tersely in her direction and motioned the group to start moving in the direction of the tall, decorated building.

“You may want to ask them” he said, hoping that this would cut the discussion short.

They traveled light — a number of engineering kits for the engineers, a medkit for the nurse, absolutely no weaponry of any sort (unless one remembered that a good engineer could easily repurpose any number of tools into devices capable of, say, removing eyes or heads).

As they approached, the decorations came better into view: the building was rich in tall windows, balconies, alcoves, punctuated by all sort of plinths and brutalist statues of Tellarites and of animals — probably the fauna of Tellar. A recurring motif seemed to be the figure of a larger Tellarite wearing some sort of fancy, and slightly ridiculous, hat.

At the door, they announced themselves. The door opened almost immediately — and, to Iskander’s surprise, manually. There was a Tellarite on the other side of that wooden frame, and he had pulled on it.

“Yes?” he asked, without making any gesture into letting them in.

“I am Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi of the USS Redding. These are Lieutenant JG Sornia and Z’Xak, and Ensign Ghoshal. I believe we are expected.”

The door-Tellarite produced some sort of noise, probably of approval, and let them in. The inside of the building was as magnificent as the outside: a huge entrance room, completely covered in carpeting, with sparse furniture in dark wood, numerous glass doors leading in all directions, and a set of curved stairs in obsidian leading to the first floor.

Soon they were met by two Tellarites: an old woman, decadent in her attire of rich tissues and with a couple of gems affixed to the skin on her face; and a man who looked like a functionary, dressed in functional black.

They could be overheard while they came down the black stairs.

“I told you we should have let them use the back entrance, Scronk,” was mumbling the old woman to the man. “Starfleet personnel using the front door — it is unheard of.”

“Some debates require a fallacy, my lady” replied mellifluously the man, and he raised his voice. “Welcome, welcome, my Starfleet friends.”

The old woman laid her eyes on the Starfleet team and immediately say Z’Xak.

“WHAT ON VULCAN IS THAT?” she screamed, pointing the finger. “Remove your pet AT ONCE from my premise!”

Z’Xak didn’t seem to have heard her. They were busy studying the carpet.

The man laughed nervously and spoke before anyone else could.

“My lady, you must know that Lieutenant Z’Xak is a respected member of the crew of the Redding. He is described as a genius of warp theory –“

“That’s doesn’t justify bringing an ANIMAL in the palace! The ARROGANCE of thinking that being a genius of warp theory allows you to bring a spider in my house — what has Rellite come to?”

The man again laughed — still as nervous, still as fake as earlier.

“My lady, my lady, very funny indeed. But I am afraid that the big spider, who is the warp theory genius, as you know from reading the short dossier I gave you, doesn’t share our sense of humor, and doesn’t seem entertained.”

The old lady opened her mouth and closed it back a couple of times, looking indignant.

“Well, of COURSE I know that, Scronk!” she said, finally retrieving some decorum. “Do NOT patronize me, you feckless swine!”

“Apology, my lady. May I relieve you of the burden of talking with the aliens?”

Iskander found himself marveling at the deference shown by Scronk towards this cranky, unfunny old lady. The Redding had received virtually no briefing on the people they were to help: so he was in the dark about their relationship. Was she an important symbol, a popular political operator, a resourceful fundraiser?

“Right” said the Tellarite when the old lady had given her assent. “I am Mister Frunk, and the highly esteemed classy lady you are in the presence of is Countess Frulenk. You are not to talk to her unless answering. Actually, you are not to talk, but just to do your job. You will now follow us to the Chamber Room.”

Iskander, Ghoshal and Sorna exchanged a quick look.

“Of course” said Iskander with a large smile. “Bring us to the Chamber. Try to keep a good pace, Mister Scronk — our legs are much longer than yours.”

“Did I say something about not talking?” he said with some dismay.

“I am not aware of anything you said that applies to us, or has authority on us, as a Starfleet squad. I find your orders to be wholly… underdimensioned.”

Scronk Frunk considered Iskander with a long look.

“Did you perchance grow up in the proximity of a Tellarite?”

“Why, my neighbors.”

“Either they were low-class, or you learned the wrong lessons from them. But fine — talk if you must.”

The Countess, quite snobbishly, turned and started walking.

“Let’s go, Scronk” said Countess Frulenk. “Stop wasting breath on the rabble.”

“Follow” said Scronk Frunk.

Finally headed somewhere, the Starfleet squad followed.

___________________________________________________________

The large building was almost labyrinthine. The old unfunny woman who led them seemed to know it by heart, but to Iskander it felt like an eclectic succession of disparate rooms: from dark corridors to large inner courts, decorated salons, monumental porticos, then luxurious chambers, perlaceous bauduoirs, until they silently reached the Chamber Room.

Iskander wasn’t particularly impressed by the sequence of superfluous rooms they had walked through. It gave him the same feeling that he had had when, during his Academy years, he had visited the museums at Versailles or at the Alhambra: it was supposed to look imposing and majestic, but it didn’t speak the same language that Iskander understood. He found them suspicious. He didn’t like the cut of their jibe.

But the Chamber Room was something else: it contained a feat of engineering and not of suspicious taste.

In the middle of a large half-dark room, lit only by actual candles, stood the stasis chamber (hence the name). Build on a roughly square basis of side two meters, high at least three, its finishing in red copper, it was dominated by a large black glass casket inside which was, presumably, a sleeping person. Iskander had become quite acquainted with that sort of Tellarite ancient technology: he could see where all components were supposed to be.

It would have been perfect if, during the years, it hadn’t been absolutely bombarded with all sorts of presumed embellishments: gold and crystal encrustments overlaid on top of the cabling, silver and pearl refurbishments to hide the monitors and the panels, oil paintings sitting in overgrown alcoves over the hydraulics, heraldic tapestries covering its mechanisms.

The stasis chamber had probably grown one meter in size in all directions over all of this extravagant and opulent redecorating.

“What has happened to it!?” murmured Lieutenant Sornia.

“We tried operating it two weeks ago to reawaken our promised prince” said Scronk Frunk, approaching the machine. “Its command panel is there, under the Silgonkrian heraldry. The instructions that we had were very simple: press three buttons, and the machine would interrupt the stasis autonomously. Yet the panel started flashing red — the procedure stopped.”

“My noble ancestor is still alive, we know as much” said the Countess. “In his suspended state, he is alive. Your task, Starfleet, is to extract him alive from this life-giving contraption that has passed his use.”

Iskander nodded and folded the information in his brain. The Tellarite to be extracted was supposedly a prince, and an ancestor of the countess. How that squared with the fact that nobility, on Rellite as on Tellar as on Earth, had been abolished centuries beforehand, he didn’t quite know. But that was a secondary problem: the engineering was definitely more interesting.

“Have you had it looked at by someone?” he asked Frunk.

“No. Our prince and our political movement have enemies on Rellite. We couldn’t be certain. That is, accidentally, why you are here, why we requested an impartial Starfleet assistance: not because you are special in any way, but rather because we trust you not to grasp the complexities of our political system and therefore not to want to hinder us.”

“Being essential and concise is a blessing, Scronk” said Iskander. “Everything but the first word was a waste of breath. We will fix your machine and extract the person from the stasis.”

Scronk Funk smiled unpleasantly.

“How long will you need, oh-hero-of-conciseness?”

“At least three hours just for the diagnostic. You will come here in three hours, Scronk, and be told how much we need for the repairs and the operation — as well as any parts or assistance we may need.”

“Are you always this grating?” asked Scronk. “It’s very unappealing for a human.”

“You bring out the best of me.”

And then, with great relief, the engineering began.

Lieutenant Iskander al-Kwaritzmi’s personal log, supplemental. I am leading a team tasked with restoring the function of a stasis chamber on the planet Rellite. We have been working for eight hours restoring all of its functionalities. The machine is old — hundreds of years old — and while the vital support and stasis systems have worked impeccably on a closed loop, the outer part of the machine — mostly the interface and communication systems — had been corroded by time and by the copious amount of, hm, metallic decoration that had been added to the machine. We think that we have solved most of the issues and an attempt is being made at awakening the sleeper.

In the penumbra of the Chamber Room, the stasis chamber was whirring and wheezing softly as its hydraulic system came to life.

In front of it a small delegation had assembled. It was headed by the so-called Countess Frulenk and by Mister Frunk, and seemed to contain as many contradictions as its two leaders: a half of the group looked like decaying aristocrats of all ages, dressed in their least sensical attire, some of them even carrying some icons or banners; the other half of the group were middle-aged stern-looking conservatively-clad political operators.

The Starfleet team had been relegated to a particularly dark corner, from which they could monitor the technical details undisturbed. They had set up a proper command center, with a series of holographic monitors and remote manipulation possibilities: they attached via cables which snaked through the whole room unseen thanks to a collection of carpets.

Bringing the machine back to life had not been easy: while the innermost part of it was on a self-propelled loop and had not suffered any malfunction, the outside had been battered. Over the centuries the surface of the machine had been covered in “decorations”, mostly golden embellishments.

“How DARE you have REMOVED our regalia!” had screamed the so-called Countess when, two hours ago, she had come to look at the proceedings.

“Which regalia?” had asked Iskander trying not to get too distracted from the re-doping of a semiconductive wafer.

“ALL of them! You were NOT to remove anything!” she had screamed.

He had sighed.

“Please be more specific” he had said.

She had picked up an elaborate golden contraption that depicted floreal motifs. Iskander had himself removed it a while back and laid it on the side.

“This is an authentic jimernet made by the goldmaster Turnirk himself!” she had said. “It was an incredible honor to have Turnirk make it for our majesty, and cost quite a penny, and has been there for more than two centuries! Humans had barely left Earth when this was laid! And you just… REMOVED it? Barbarism! Absolute barbarism! What were you planning on doing? Stealing it?”

Iskander had sighed again, even deeply, and had abandoned the plan of finishing the semiconductive wafer in one go. He had put the alkaline deambulator down and had looked at her with all the patience he could muster.

“That authentic… jimernet… had been mounted over a panel. Below the panel is the heat exchange actuator of the stasis chamber. When the heat exchange motor is given power, the current creates a small magnetic field. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem — but it could induce a small current in the gold, resulting in a heat leak. This would be detected as a functional error by the self-diagnostics of the chamber, resulting in the abortion of the process.”

She had looked aggravated.

“Do not patronize me with big words, little man!” she had snorted.

“The stasis chamber is a complicated machine. Very sensitive to its environment. Adding metallic, conductive bits on top of it made it malfunction.”

“This isn’t a metallic, conductive bit, you gormless monkey! It’s the jimernet of a goldmaster!”

“Oh, I know nothing of jimernets. I only know gold as a metal. It was making the machine malfunction. If you want I can show you the scans and the diagnostics.”

“But this is… this is…” she had looked red, and had picked up a piece of cloth that Z’Xak had removed. “And this?”

“It’s a piece of cloth.”

“NO IT IS NOT! It is an araldic tzui-banner that my family had already on Tellar! WHAT IS IT DOING ON THIS TRAY!”

Truth to be told, the large spider, who probably couldn’t really quite grasp an insignificant concept such as “araldic decorations”, had put it on the floor. Iskander had then gently stored it on one of the many trays he had organized for the task.

“A tray is a better place than the floor” he had said.

“THE FLOOR! WHY did you remove it? Are you going to invent a reason that it’s metallic or something?”

Iskander had sighed and pointed.

“It was there. On top of that hole.”

“First time in my LIFE I see that hole, but it is VERY unesthetic! I can understand that someone, centuries ago, had to cover it.”

“That hole is an air vent, miss Frulenk. It’s literally how the person inside the chamber is going to breathe.”

She had grimaced.

“My noble ancestor must have taken it into account, certainly. Removing it altogether was entirely uncalled for, Starfleet.”

Iskander had stroked his chin.

“Well” he had said finally. “If you are asking us to endanger the life of the sleeper by respecting every single invaluable bit of material –“

“Of course not” had interrupted, arriving hurriedly Mister Frunk. Behind him, Ensign Ghoshal, who had probably seen the developing crisis.

Good man, had thought Iskander.

The politician had quickly resolved the tension — as he was much keener than Iskander was to find a diplomatic solution. They agreed that the removal of the ornamentation was reversible and temporary.

“Because — you can put them back into place, can’t you” he had asked Iskander.

“Of course. We have scans of the machine as it was in the beginning.”

“So you see, Countess! It is unfortunate that the sacred insignia of the machine have been temporarily removed, but we shan’t play with fate when the life of our Prince is concerned, isn’t it?” he had turned to her. “I’m sure that the Starfleet team will be delighted to stay here and put everything back.”

“It is BLASPHEMY that they should have touched any of it” she had snorted, but could not argue further.

Scronk Frunk had accompanied her to the door and then had come back to the Starfleet team. Could they do put all the decoration back in place overnight? Of course not. Then they’d have to remain as guests until they were done — they’d get rooms in the old servant wing of the palace.

And now the machine was working.

To be fair, repairing the machine had taken more than just removing the tacky decorations. It had been running for centuries and never properly maintained. The three engineers had found faults and flaws by the dozens: electrical wiring that would overload when pushed, condensators that had lost their capacitance, rubber that had been made stiff and unbending by time, cracked fluid vessels, leaky cryojuice pipes, computer subroutines stuck in endless for-loops, and a laundry list of non-critical defects so long that it seemed very critical.

It wasn’t a surprise that, when the Tellarites had tried a couple of weeks ago, the system had crashed twice and refused to proceed. The logs of the attempts showed that the stasis chamber had somehow created almost 300 error messages per second, ranging from trivial to critical, whereas its computer refused to run the de-freezing procedure if more than three trivial error messages were present.

But that part of the project had really amused Iskander. It was old technology — properly old, dating from a time when Earth barely had warp and Tellarites barely broke Warp factor 1.4 — and it gave him a warm and fuzzy feeling to touch and repair it. Some parts couldn’t be repaired but could be replaced by something modern — usually a device one tenth the size for a tenfold effect — and the human engineer had made himself a small collection of old Tellarite parts that could probably otherwise be only found in a museum. Scronk Frunk had shown no interest in them, so he’d be bringing all those small technological oddities back to the Redding to run full spec analysis.

The member of the team who had done the most work was, interestingly, Lieutenant Z’Xak.

The Ukarimi had quite clearly not understood why they were doing any of this. They had approached Iskander after some twenty minutes and had tappet with their vestigial arms on their stomach in the patterns that the universal translator was now able to convert into sound.

“I see unknown people” they had said. Their voice, in Iskander’s ears, was atonal, androgynous, detached.

Their language was peculiar, as always. The Ukarimi language had only two subjects — the first and the second singular. They could say “I am” and “you have”, but “it runs” or “we eat” were impossible constructions. Hence, instead of saying “you guys are eating”, they’d have to tap a verbal construction such as “I see you-and-many at the activity of eating”. That suited well their planet, as the Ukarimi were extreme non-social beings and almost never conceived of themselves as an “us” or of a group as a “them”; in Starfleet this wasn’t really that easy.

That said, the Ukarimi still used quite an unusual vocabulary. They had wanted to say “I do not know these people”, but they preferred to say “I see” to “I don’t know”, apparently.

“I also do not know them” had answered Iskander, who was unscrewing a panel. “They are important on Rellite.”

“You work with motivation for the unknown important people” had said the Ukarimi.

Iskander scratched his chin.

“They have asked for our help.”

“You help because you want to help the unknown important people?”

Iskander thought again. Interestingly enough, the Z’Xak had no qualm with helping someone who was in life danger — they had not seemed uncertain, for instance, when the Redding had lent its aid to the partially assimilated Franscini — but didn’t seem to think that anything more than a threat merited help.

“Yes?” he finally said.

“I evaluate the task as simple. I despair at their laziness.”

Ukarimi didn’t ask for help. They either took things made by others without asking — they had little concept of personal property — or they learned how to do something themselves. Z’Xak was several centuries old: they had spent almost all their life learning how to do things they wanted done.

“No, no. Remember what we said about non-Ukarimi being so short-lived? We do not have time to learn everything we need. They haven’t learned this. We are specialists and are going to help them.”

“I understand” tapped the big spider after a while. “I see an interesting task in front of us. I see technological challenges. I see possibility for growth. I understand the unknown important people receiving help.”

Without thanking or saying anything else, the big spider scuttled away. Iskander looked at them picking up a tricorder with its weird, uncanny hand-limbs, and start scanning.

Getting Z’Xak to understand that the decorations were emotionally important to the Rellites, however, had been impossible. But they had engaged themselves at amazing speed, fixing an incredible quantity of problems. They rarely worked outside of their field of expertise — warp field technology — but they were an engineering genius, no doubt about that. Not to mention, their composite eyes and their multiple limbs were of great use for an engineer: Iskander was almost a bit jealous of someone who could use simultaneously so many different tools.

And now the Stasis Chamber was warming up its inhabitant and bringing him out of his long sleep.

It was taking, truth to be told, quite a long time. The full procedure would take one hour on the ground of the tech being quite old. Nevertheless, the Tellarites had assumed positions: standing in four lines, looking towards the chamber, standing, standing, standing. Not one of them dared to move: probably out of some sort of cerimonial ritualistic duty. They didn’t speak either, and some of them seemed to be carrying presents in the form of clothes or food or stuff like that, held in outstretched arms.

There was even a child, probably no older than six, who was the only source of chatter and of movement. He kept asking his mother when the Prince would awaken, how long it would take, what the point of the machine was, where the Prince was, why they couldn’t turn up the lights, who the other people were. The mother would just answer in the most hushed tone, probably to tell him to be quiet.

Iskander was quite happy to be sitting down in the privacy of their remote control booth, hidden in the dark edges of the Chamber Room. They had put a holographic paneling that would shield them from view and absorb the sound, so they could talk. Sornia had bothered Scronk Frunk until he had had some food brought to them, so they were also eating from a platter of the Rellite version of ghrinbe — a food that Iskander hadn’t eaten since he was twelve, and which he remembered to be more acidic.

The only member of the team who seemed to be on edge was Nurse Ghoshal.

Well, there was no way of telling whether Z’Xak was on edge or not, as their eyes were lidless and inexpressive and their body language incomprehensible. However, they were probably just fine eating their small salad and typing calculations on a padd.

Until that point the good nurse had been rather quiet. He couldn’t assist with repairing a dilution fridge or rewiring hadronic actuators; his assistance had been mostly in the solitary task of diagnosing the biosigns and the vital support system.

He had however found something worrying.

“See this?” had asked the nurse to Iskander and Lieutenant Sornia, indicating a point on a scan.

The two engineers had looked at it.

“It’s a valve and a pump” had answered Sornia. “They’re working properly.”

“What? Yes. No. I mean, what’s inside. It’s a plasmatic infusion.”

“Ah” had said Sornia.

“There’s a small amount of it stored deep into the machine. During the wake-up phase, it has to be slowly infused into the stasis sleeper. You see, this sort of stasis is partially biological — part of the liquids of the body are extracted, stored into the machine, and then pumped back in when they wake up.”

“Yes” had said Sornia. “I trust you on that.”

“It’s… well, my scans indicate that the fluid is too thick and viscous” had added Ghoshal.

The two engineers had nodded.

“So it’s going to move too slowly?” had imagined Iskander.

“Quite.”

“Could that be dangerous for the person?”

“It could be deadly. Possibly. I’d suggest we rehydrate it.”

Iskander and Sornia had looked over the schematics. The fluid storage was mounted well below the sleeper.

“I’m afraid it’s too deep inside the machine for us to arrive” had said Iskander.

They had rummaged through a couple of options before arriving at the simplest. Their hosts had forbidden any sort of teleportation inside of the perimeter of the building — something about respecting the holinessof the place, whatever that meant — but a small amount of fluid could just be teleported into the plasmatic infusion to dilute it. No matter how deep it was inside of the machine, the transporter beam could get there.

They had discussed it with Mister Frunk. He had looked perturbed.

“Could your readings be inaccurate or your diagnosis be wrong?” he had grumbled.

“No” had answered Iskander, Sornia and Ghoshal in a chorus. Z’Xak was doing their own thing, of course.

“How could this problem have emerged? Is the fluid just too old or is it sabotage?”

“Impossible to say” had answered Ghoshal.

“Can you allow us such a small use of a transporter?” had asked Iskander. “We will use it only if absolutely necessary — if a medical risk exists.”

“Grmbl” had said Frunk. “The Countess regards this palace as sacred, and a transporter beam as a violation. There are sensors and an alarm will sound if something is beamed in or out, and planetary security will be called. That said — there is a code, of course. If it is communicated to the sensor system, the alarm will be disabled for one minutes.”

“That would be perfect.”

The Tellarite had looked at Iskander with great hostility.

“I am entrusting you with a great secret, Starfleet. The Countess gave it to me and she’d be very displeased if I gave it to a disrespectful monkey such as you.”

“We can talk to her.”

“Better not. I want your promise that you will not abuse it and not give it to anyone else, Mister al-Quaritzmi.”

Iskander had promised. The code was 123456789.

And now, as the machine whirred and purred, reawakening its sleeping inhabitant, Ghoshal kept looking over the vital signs and the wealth of bioreadings that he had. Half an hour into the procedure, he turned to his colleagues.

“The plasmatic infusion is flowing too slowly, Lieutenant” he said. “As suspected.”

“Understood” said Iskander. “Damage to the sleeper?”

“None so far.”

Iskander had already prepared everything: the doctors on the Redding had been notified, and an appropriate amount of water had been already positioned in the medical transporter pod. The engineer had to just push two buttons: one to communicate the very secure code to the building security, and one to remotely start the beaming process.

It worked like a charm. Due to the heavy pumping noise made by the machine, no one even could hear the noise of the transporter. A perfect operation.

_______________________________________________

After one of hour and a half of working, the stasis chamber opened on its, lifting its heavy lid, releasing big clouds of vapor around it.

The sleeper inside it groaned, exposed for the first time to air in centuries.

The Tellarites that had stood in front of the stasis chamber for the first time, to their honor, had been absolutely dedicated to the ritual, not moving except for the child and a couple of elderly men who had taken several toilet breaks. Now, Countess Frulenk advanced and spoke in a high and loud voice.

“Welcome back to Rellite, your royal highness!” she intoned. “You have slept for centuries, but the time has come for you to awaken from your slumber! I am your great-great-great-great nephew, Countess Frulenk, and behind me all that remains of your family and of the noble houses of Rellite are gathered. And this is Scronk Frunk, the chief of the Royalist Party of Rellite. Elections are coming, your royal highness, and the people are sure to vote for a restoration of the monarchy, they are guaranteed to make of you, the last viable prince of our noble line, King of the planet! Blessed be this day and blessed are you and I! Rise, royal highness, and rejoice! Everything has been prepared!”

And, still hidden into the bed of the stasis chamber, the “prince” spoke.

“Are you my mum?” he asked.

Lieutenant JG al-Kwaritzmi’s personal log, supplemental: after a great success in reviving the stasis sleeper — everyone addresses him as a prince, but I haven’t really understood what’s that all about — our hosts have insisted that we stayed on the planet and in the palace. The so-called Countess Frulenk is still very incensed that, in order to make the stasis chamber work, we had to remove all its silly decorations. She doesn’t want us to leave until it’s been repaired.

We have been given really nice rooms. She of course wanted us to go to the servant’s wing, but it turns out that the rooms are not made: only guest rooms — properly decadent things — are maintained. The food has also been excellent.

We are to meet are 0900 to start the operation of restoring the stasis chamber as it was before we made it functional.

Iskander stopped recording and put down the PADD. Had he started the log with his old, incorrect rank? Possibly.

He sighed. The room was, of course, luxurious in a way that reminded him of a hoarder more than of a person with taste. Every surface was occupied by some delicate statue or ornament, every bit of wall was plastered in some heraldic rug or cloud of silk or epic painting of some Tellarite medieval battle. It overwhelmed the senses. What was the tackiest detail? The rich, velvety, purple, light-devouring curtains? The fact that the large mirror was mounted inside of an even larger statue of a Tellarite head, of which it constituted the mouth?

Questions for the philosophers.

Iskander finished dressing by closing the jacket of his uniform and exited the room. The hallway outside was dark and dusky, perfectly silent, and he knew where to go. He had always been blessed with an almost preternatural orientation sense: he could walk for up to two hours and find his way back, or be able to find the way again, having memorized without much effort. He knew how to get to the Chamber Room, and halfway through he met Ensign Ghoshal, who was awkwardly standing around in the middle of a large oval reception room.

“Ensign” he greeted him.

The nurse jolted with surprise.

“Lieutenant!” said he, still awkward. “I — hm, you scared me.”

“Engineers have that effect” replied Iskander, and pointed to a door, knowing perfectly well that it was the way to go. “It’s through there, isn’t it?”

“I — hm, maybe? Should we ask?”

Iskander smiled.

“No” he said, and walked through the door. “Did you sleep well?”

Within five minutes they were in the Chamber Room, equally dark as it had been yesterday, and soon joined by the other two Starfleet members.

Surprisingly their politician-looking guest, Frunk, also made an appearance.

“Is the stasis chamber in perfect state?” he asked looking at the big lumbering machine.

“It’s functional” opined Iskander. “But many pieces are centuries old, they could do with some repairing or at least with some polishing.”

“Would it take you a lot of work to replace or polish? It’d be nice to have it back to its original state, to its original perfection.”

“It would take probably one day” said Iskander having exchanged a look with Sornia. “We could do it. Why, do you plan on using it again?”

The Tellarite looked offended.

“Certainly not!” he snorted. “But this machine is going to become a place of sacred pilgrimage after the Monarchy is reinstated, human! People are going to kneel in front of it and argue with it! It should be perfect.”

“Can’t say I understand” said Iskander. “But if it’s your request, we can do it.”

“I never expected you to understand” grunted the Tellarites, and left brashly.

They started repairing the stasis chamber.

It turned out to be, after all, a perfectly relaxing an pleasant endeavor. Most of its machinery was unusual for Federation standards, especially the hydraulic engine — which had an almost clockwork-like delightful architecture — and the engineers had a lot of fun showing each other small technological wonders and discussing the unusual design choices.

“It’s got an laser-driven cooling system” would say for instance Sornia, excitedly. “So inventive! I’ve read about tech like this, but seeing it in person is something else!”

“So cool!” would answer Iskander. “Did you see this, Z’Xak? Amazing! It cools using a laser beam that targets and removes the hottest atoms inside of a potential trap!”

The spider would say nothing, but would stare with their composite eyes. Oddly, they seemed to enjoy themselves.

The only one who didn’t seem to be entertained by this was, of course, Ghoshal. Without a patient inside, the stasis chamber was a piece of machine, and as such entirely outside of his domain of expertise. He picked up his PADD, connected to the Redding computer system, and started going through old reports, until something happened.

With great pompe and circumstance, the self-professed Countess Frulenk entered, followed by three lackeys and by the sleeper they had awoken yesterday — the Tellarite whom she addressed as “my Prince”.

“You!” she said, pointing at Ghoshal.

The nurse stared at her.

“You will stand, human, in my presence!” she said.

“Of course” said Ghoshal. “Apologies if I didn’t immediately do so. I didn’t want to startle you with my size.”

Iskander smiled. While they had walked here, he had given Ghoshal a couple of suggestion on talking to Tellarites.

“You uneducated stuurp-licker!” answered the Countess with absolutely no class. “You are lucky that we need you. You are the medic of the team, right?”

“That is so. Nurse Ghoshal at your disposal.”

“All during the night our promised Prince has suffered of migraine” she said. “I am sure it is because you mishandled the reveille, yesterday.”

“The technical manual of the stasis chamber does say that it’s quite likely such symptoms would emerge” said Ghoshal. “But I assume you haven’t read it.”

“Is it bad?” asked the presumptive Prince.

He was slightly shorter than the Countess and looked completely disoriented — his voice was slightly nasal and not particularly firm. He was one of the more smooth-skinned Tellarites but had impressive nasal flaps and ear gauchders; he was dressed quite garishly.

“No” answered Ghoshal. “If you want I can administer a cure and monitor you for the other side effects. The technical manual claims that they can get quite persistent, but I am sure that modern technology can also say something about that.”

“Oh. Jolly. Wait a moment.”

The presumptive prince turned to the Countess.

“Should we trust these Vulcans? They all look the same to me, all spindly and scheming. They sound nice, but can we trust them?”

“Your highness will remember that they are not Vulcans, they are Humans” corrected him the Countess.

“Yes, yes, it’s jolly good for the humans, whatever those are, but I mean these Vulcans here, can we trust them?”

“Do concentrate, your highness! These are the humans.”

“Why can’t we have a good Tellarite doctor?”

“Your people await your return with eagerness, highness, but it would be enough to have one single Republican doctor, one single medic who admires that awful Shallash, to ruin your chances. These Starfleet, who can’t understand true politics, are safe.”

“That’s good for the Starfleets, but can we trust these Vulcans?”

She sighed.

“Yes. You can trust them. You have my word.”

“Well that’s all I wanted, I don’t see why you had to hide the answer from me!”

Iskander raised both eyebrows. Sure, the so-called Prince had entered Stasis before the creation of the Federation, and maybe even before Humans had ever set foot on Rellite, but… he sounded a bit thick.

“Take good care of him or I’ll make me shoes with your hide” said Countess Frulenk to Ghoshal.

“You’d never wear them” answered Ghoshal. “You aren’t elegant enough for human skin. But I’ll take excellent care of him.”

She reddened and ran away.

Ensign Ghoshal had the Tellarite sit and started probing him. The Tellarite looked at him with concern.

“What may I call you?” asked Ghoshal while waving the sensor of his medical tricorder.

“I am to be addressed as Prince or your highness.”

“Yes. No, I’m not going to do that. I’ve looked up the laws of Rellite, and nobility has been abolished centuries ago. There’s no such thing as a Prince.”

“There’s soon to be! Frulenk — did you know she’s my nephew? That’s insane — and that lackey Crunk are going to have me elected and then declared King!”

Ghoshal looked like he was struggling not to change expression.

“Until then I can’t use the title.”

“But everyone does.”

“Yes, but I don’t understand true politics.”

“But you call my nephew Countess, even if I can call her by her name.”

“None of us has used her title. So, what may I call you?”

“I am Kojik” said finally the Tellarite. “Kojik Certerzany Skrunerkolk of the Kaddir Dynasty, former Kings and Queens of the Kingdom of Yumerk on Tellar.”

“Kojik?”

“Kojik.”

“Kindly lift your arm.”

The Tellarite did so.

“Now the other one.”

The Tellarite lifted the same one.

“No, the other one.”

The Tellarite looked confused. Ghoshal showed him which one.

“And what may I call you, Vulcan?”

“I am an Ensign and a Nurse, but my name is Anmol.”

“Amol.”

“Close enough.”

The nurse put some sort of neural sensor on his brow.

“Please count up to ten in your head, Kojik.”

The Tellarite concentrated.

“That’s good, thank you” said Ghoshal.

“I had only gotten to seven.”

“Ah… it’s fine.”

“Can you heal me?”

“Your headache? No. Easily treatable. During the stasis process you have been injected some good amounts of a collagen emulsion, and your body needs time to get rid of it without help.”

“I don’t understand those words. Do they mean that you can heal me?”

“Yes. Please stay still.”

The nurse took a hypospray, loaded it with something, and administered the cure.

“I didn’t even feel a prick!” said the Tellarite. “Is this magic?”

“It’s called a hypospray.”

“Is it some sort of magic?”

“It’s technology.”

“How can you tell the difference, Amol?”

“It works. Also, we build it.”

“Can I stand?”

“I would like you to stay around here for some minutes before I can declare you healed and discharge you, but feel free to stand and walk.”

The Tellarite stood and approached the empty stasis machine on which the three engineers were working. He looked at it with indecipherable emotions on the face.

“Are you repairing it?” he asked finally.

“Yes, Kojik” answered Iskander.

His expression soured.

“I hate this machine” said Kojik.

Iskander didn’t answer.

“I didn’t choose to enter in here and be frozen. Everyone I know — everything I know — has been taken from me by this machine. I didn’t even understand why I had to get frozen and sent to the future.”

“Who decided?”

“The Prince. I mean, my father. Who was Prince when I was alive. Now he’s dead and I am the Prince, and my brother had children and they had children and Frulenk is my niece and this is all very confusing.”

Iskander looked at Kojik. He had not yet heard a single pinch of sarcasm or any hint of an insult, which was unusual for a Tellarite. He looked just sincerely sad.

“I am sorry that this was done to you.”

“Could you break it so that it could never be used again?”

“I am an engineer. I don’t break things. You should ask a soldier — usually they’re the ones making a mess.”

“You are unusually kind and talkative for a Vulcan.”

“I’m not — you know what? Yes, I am. I am, by the way, Iskander.”

“Kander. I see. And I thought all Vulcan names were like T’Pip and T’Puk.”

“You can call me T’Iskander if you prefer.”

“T’Iskander. Yes. I like it.”

What an odd, odd discussion.

“I like talking to you and to Amol.”

“Any particular reason?” asked Ghoshal.

“Everyone else looks at me like expecting someting, like being always disappointed by something. Like my father looked at me. They are horrible and tell me nonsensical things and they are happy only when I nod and say nothing back. They talk at me. You talk with me.”

Anmol Ghoshal and Iskander stared at the supposed Prince.

“You’re not going to tell me that you also want something of me, right?” asked the Tellarite, suddenly struck by that dark suspicion.

“No, Kojik” said Iskander. “We want nothing of you.”

“Everyone told me that Vulcans are bad — logic this and logic that, this is most illogical, here are many difficult words — but you’re actually delightful!”

“We’re — hm — are Vulcans the only aliens you know, Kojik?”

“What? No! There’s the blue ones and the green ones and the Vulcans who are pink or black. It’s easy to keep track.”

Anmol Ghoshal cleared his throat and took up the tricorder.

“Will you look at the time!” he exclaimed. “It’s time to check on you, Kojik. How are you feeling?”

“Much better, Amol.”

The nurse took a couple of scans and readings and hummed with satisfaction.

With a great noise from the doors, the self-called Countess made her return.

“My noble uncle!” she called, “where are you?”

Kojik groaned — softly enough to be heard only by the two humans next to him.

“I am here, hm –“

“Please do call me niece beloved or noble niece” she said, pompusly approaching. “Are you feeling better?”

“It feels weird to call you my niece. You are older than me. Can’t I call you aunt?”

“I am not your aunt. I am descendant of your brother Tujik, through his son Retalki, through his daughter –“

“Yes, yes, you already told me all of those names of people who are younger than I am but have already died.”

She looked at him with some concern.

“Are you doing alright, noble uncle?”

“Much better, hm, oh my remarkable niece. This Vulcan has been very helpful and I have felt nothing when he administered a cure.”

The old matriarch looked at Iskander and Anmol with great suspicion.

“They were talking to you. I hope they have not been BOTHERING you. They should know better than to aggress their betters with their inane chatter.”

“We should” answered Iskander, “if anyone who is vaguely our better was ever to be found around this neighborhood.”

“You blaspheme” answered the Countess.

“They were not bothering me, nice niece” said Kojik. “I wanted to talk to them. Should they have objected to one of my wishes?”

She kept staring at the two humans with some animosity.

“Your wishes are sacrosanct, your highness.”

“Good” approved Kojik. “Now I want to go out from here.”

“That would be unwise.”

“I want to go out of here. I’ve always been a prisoner of this palace. I want to see the world.”

“You have to prepare for your debates, noble uncle. But maybe we should discuss that away from the ears of these Starfleets.”

“I want to go out. To talk with someone normal.”

“Can we go back to your rooms? Rinkij and Frunk and Krolana are eagerly awaiting you.”

“We can go out!”

She sighed.

“Soon you will be King and then no one will stop you from going out, your highness. Until then, we have to do everything to make sure that you are given your rightful place — everything has to be perfect. You must be briefed, informed, involved in the strategy, we have to look at your wardrobe, at your hair, at your skin –“

“If you do not want to go out with me, maybe these two lovely Vulcans will.”

She scoffed.

“These two humans — Vulcans, I mean — are not to do anything with you. I forbid them from bringing you out. Besides, they’re busy taking care of the stasis chamber and repairing the DAMAGE they did to it. Now come — let us remove ourselves from their dreadful midst. They’re probably followers of Shallash.”

“You said that they didn’t understand true politics.”

“They’d be followers of Shallash if they could understand it. Which is to say, they could only misunderstand politics, as all followers of Shallash can. Now come.”

“But –” tried to say the so-called Prince.

At that point, Lieutenant Z’Xak emerged from the bowels of the stasis chamber. Using their compact size, they had crawled inside of it in order to fix the redundant visualizing co-processors; doubtlessly they had performed the task perfectly.

They tapped on their thorax with their small vestigial limbs.

“I do the tests for chromomorphic resonance now” they tapped.

It turned out that Kojik had not yet seen Z’Xak — and that they were quite afraid of spiders.

“AAAH!” he screamed. “A MONSTER!”

He started ineffectively hitting Z’Xak’s exoskeleton with his small fists, despite both the Countess and the two humans telling him to stop, that Z’Xak was a friend, that there was no danger, and please just stop hitting the nice sentient spider.

After a short while Z’Xak’s initial confusion changed into irritation, and they bit the Tellarite back. That, at least, made him stop.