Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi’s log, supplemental: Frulenk retracted her help request to the Starfleet. All engineering teams are being recalled. I am about to beam aboard the Redding.

Iskander was enveloped into the sweet golden shimmer of the transporter beam and when he opened his eyes he was in the transporter room — his transporter room — and welcomed, unexpectedly, by the Rellite Planetary Representative to the Council of the United Federation of Planets, Surblona Grinz.

“Councillor” said Iskander, a bit taken aback.

“Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi” said she, smiling, showing her barbs. “I thought I should speak to you.”

What did she know?

He descended the transporter pod. He was carrying a couple of quite heavy engineering boxes. “I’m — momentarily inconvenienced with all of these boxes.”

Grinz’s barbed smile didn’t change. “I predicted you would and have already contacted Commander Mir Durbus. She enthusiastically agreed that I can have you for a quarter of an hour. Please walk with me.”

Grinz walked out of the transporter room and Iskander had no other choice than to leave his boxes behind and walk after the small, gray Tellarite.

“The monarchist party has abandoned their campaign” said finally Grinz, walking in the corridor, seemingly pleased.

“I am aware” said Iskander. “That’s why our engineering teams are already returning.”

Grinz looked at him. “You are being awfully guarded, Lieutenant.”

“You are being unusually interested in me, Counsellor.”

“Why, Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi, you interest me greatly. Do you know that it was I who put together the engineering teams? I decided who would attend which duties. I hand-picked you for the stasis chamber.”

“Why me?”

“In the Academy you wrote an essay about the concept of Monarchy for one of your ethno-anthropology courses. I read it with great interest. Your dislike was impressive.”

Iskander had completely forgotten about having written an essay all of those years ago. “I attended to my duties with the utmost professionality, Counsellor, whatever my ideology might be.”

“Oh, sure, you did” nodded Grinz. “But taking out the Prince to a night club, for instance, went well beyond your duties.”

Iskander almost stopped for a moment. Surblona Grinz knew of that? How much did she know?

“I don’t feel at ease discussing my free time” he said finally, knowing how defensive he was sounding.

“Oh, I accuse you of nothing. But it angered the faux-Countess Frulenk enormously, which in turns pleases me enormously” said Surblona Grinz showing her barbs again.

“If I may say, Counsellor, you are sounding less than impartial. Shouldn’t you as a Federation Representative be above political squabbles and preferences?”

She laughed shortly. “Yes, Lieutenant, I should.”

“Is sending a known anti-monarchist to a sensitive mission for a monarchist party an impartial thing to do?”

The eyes of the Tellarite shone with joy but her tone sounded perfectly innocent. “Why, Lieutenant, you attended to your duties with the utmost professionality.”

They walked for twenty meters without talking.

Surblona Grinz then spoke again. “You know, I have seen the most peculiar Tellarite beam aboard, about one hour ago.”

She knew, thought Iskander.

“You did?”

“Yes. He seemed very confused. Your ship’s counsellor was there to greet him and calm him down. I’m so sorry I couldn’t hear their discussion.”

Iskander stared at her while walking.

“May I ask you just a curiosity, Lieutenant?”

“Of course.”

“I know that the Frulenk’s palace has internal sensors and has alarms set up against beaming. She’s conservative like that. It would seem impossible to beam somebody out of there without being detected. If you, a transporter expert, wanted to manage to elude the internal sensors and beam someone out of there, how would you do it?”

“Is this an accusation?”

“It is a pure hypothetical. Speak freely.”

Iskander pondered for a moment, and decided to speak. “Hypothetically speaking, the security grid can be given a code that deactivates the alarm for a short time. You know, it’s a measure set up in case of a medical emergency — Frulenk would want doctors to be beamed into the palace without the alarm being sounded.”

“A sensible measure. Why would you have been given that code?”

“During Kojik’s wake-up sequence, when he was being awoken from stasis, there was a small chance that a medical emergency would emerge. It was deemed safer to move the thawing body directly to the Redding‘s sickbay. I would have been authorized to use the code and beam Kojik out of there.”

“So you might, hypothetically, have used the code, say, one hour ago, just after Kojik had climbed into the stasis chamber, but before the stasis protocol had started?”

Iskander smiled. “In a purely hypothetical way, yes.”

He didn’t need to mention that he had had to beam aboard during the night to discuss this with Commander Vistia Xe and Counselor Sakar; nor did he mention all the scenarios that him, Sornia and Anmol had prepared for; nor of the clever little biomime that they had beamed into the stasis chamber after Kojik had been beamed out, to emit fake Tellarite biosigns. He was sure that Surblona Grinz could connect all the dots.

“Rellite is safer with the last presumptive King removed from the equation. So you see, I picked well” said Surblona Grinz. “I don’t think that Mir Durbus would have beamed Kojik out of there.”

Iskander thought about that. “No, I don’t think she would have.”

Surblona Grinz looked at him with a grin.

“Hypothetically, I mean” added Iskander a bit too late.

________________________________________________________________________________________

In the evening, Iskander went to the Reddaurant, where the whole adventure had started.

Anmol Ghoshal and Diran Koli were already sitting there, a couple of drinks in front of them, and Iskander sat.

“Well!” said Diran Koli. “Isn’t it our transporter expert!”

“You should get yourself a drink, Iskander” said Anmol.

“First I’d like to know how our new Tellarite on board is doing” said Iskander. “I haven’t gotten any news all day.”

“You should get a drink then” repeated Anmol, and pointed.

Sure enough, Kojik was at the bar, in the middle of the process of pouring liquid from a bottle into an other bottle, and not quite managing.

“What, not even one day aboard and he’s already been put to work?” said Iskander, surprised.

“Are you kidding? Apparently Counsellor Sakar was touring the ship with him and when they got into the bar Kojik decided that he didn’t want to leave” revealed Diran Koli. “He’s having the time of his life. By the way, are you going to tell me who he is? Did you just recruit a random Tellarite to join the Redding?”

“Our lips are sealed” proclaimed Iskander, and stood.

He reached the bar and Kojik was overjoyed to see him.

“Iskander!” said the Tellarite. “Look at me! I’m being useful!”

“I am truly happy to see you, Kojik.”

A bit of emotion got to the Tellarite. “My friends are happy to see me. But now I am to be useful! Can I get you something to drink?”

Iskander ordered. Kojik tried his best to put the cocktail together: he did everything wrong, but with such enthusiasm!