“It might not add up to anything sinister,” Lieutenant Hopman said, breaking her silence as she leaned her foil alongside Sulu’s against the gymnasium wall. “You’ve already mentioned the renowned Tholian penchant for xenophobia. Perhaps that’s all this is.”

But Sulu wasn’t buying it. “The Tholians are renowned for a lot of things, Lieutenant. Dithering isn’t one of them.”

“Their society is made up of multiple castes,” Hopman said. “Perhaps the castes are in fundamental disagreement about how best to deal with the Federation.”

Sulu nodded. “Maybe they aren’t all in agreement that they even shoulddeal with the Federation.”

“A distinct possibility,” said Hopman.

“Well, maybe thiswill shed some light on the matter,” Chekov said, holding up a memory chip, which he then handed to Sulu. “Janice received this just before I left the bridge. It’s an encrypted message from Starfleet Command. It’s scrambled and marked ‘for the captain’s eyes only.’ ”

Sulu contemplated the palm-sized piece of translucent red plastic he held in his hand. This far from a starbase, realtime subspace communication with Starfleet brass simply wasn’t practical. So the message’s arrival, by itself, was no cause for concern. However, its “eyes-only” classification concerned him. It obviously contained sensitive information, and its appearance on the eve of the first major rapprochement between the Tholian Assembly and the United Federation of Planets had to be significant as well.

“Do you want me to alert the Federation special envoy [9] about the change in schedule?” Chekov said, a faint look of distaste on his face.

Sulu shook his head. “Not yet. Let me see what Starfleet Command has to say first. Then I’ll talk to Ambassador Burgess about the change in plans.”

Chekov looked relieved not to have to handle the Federation representative himself. For his own part, Sulu did not relish the prospect either. True enough, Aidan Burgess had been more than cooperative in furnishing Lieutenant Hopman and the rest of Excelsior’ssenior staff with valuable information about the Tholians during the two days since the Enterprise had dropped her off. But the ambassador’s frantic preparations for the impending diplomatic meetings had run many of the ship’s support personnel ragged.

Sulu had done his best to make certain that most of Deck Eight had been converted for the Tholians’ use, including the installation of forcefield-reinforced transparent aluminum walls capable of holding a Tholian-friendly N-class atmosphere at 200° C and twenty-two bars of pressure. Chief Engineer Azleya had overseen the technical details of the hasty environmental modifications with her usual Denobulan good humor.

It had been the quartermaster and his staff who had probably endured the biggest hardships because of Burgess’s presence; she had browbeaten them into fashioning a ceremonial gown for her upcoming meeting with Tholian ambassador Kasrene. Not only were Burgess’s specifications exacting, but she had also insisted upon using a peculiar metallic fabric for the job. It was evidently something that she had only very recently acquired, at considerable cost, and it appeared to be resistant to any tool short of a mining drill.

But since Starfleet had explicitly ordered him to indulge the ambassador’s eccentricities, Sulu was determined to be as obliging as possible in the interests of the mission. Diplomacy, he knew from long experience, was a very mixed [10] bag—as were diplomats. Maybe Burgess didn’t possess quite the same quiet dignity as a Sarek or a Spock. Who did? Sulu knew he could at least be thankful—so far, at least—that she wasn’t a martinet like Robert Fox, or a loose cannon like Curzon Dax. Things could always be a whole lot worse,he thought.

“I’ll assume you’re taking a rain check on the rest of our workout, Captain,” Hopman said as she retrieved her foil from where she’d left it leaning. Sulu dismissed her, and she raised her blade in a fencer’s salute before departing.

Sulu turned to Chekov. “You’d better advise the quartermaster about the schedule change right away. If Ambassador Burgess’s tailoring job isn’t ready before 0900 tomorrow, I don’t want her jumping down my throat about it.”

Chekov began moving toward the door, a wry smile on his face. “I’ll make sure he either finishes on time, or else perishes in the attempt.”

After Chekov exited the gym, Sulu grabbed his épée and made his way toward his quarters. He looked forward to a hot shower, a change of clothes, a steaming cup of Darjeeling—and discovering the contents of Starfleet Command’s mysterious “eyes-only” message.

Sulu stripped down for the sonic shower as the computer terminal in his quarters displayed the Federation emblem. Slowly stretching the muscles in his back, he spoke his security access code to the computer and instructed it to display the newly arrived message.

“Working,” the computer said, speaking in a soothing, feminine alto. One of the first things Sulu had done after assuming command of the Excelsiorwas to get rid of the booming male computer voices that his immediate predecessor, Captain Styles, had favored.

Sulu felt a twinge in his left shoulder as he removed his fencing jacket and tossed it into the clothing ’cycler. Must[11] have pulled something during the workout. Or maybe I’m just beginning to feel my age.

In the mirror, he could see the irregular, vaguely star-shaped traceries of scar tissue that covered his left shoulder like a worn piece of braid. Over the past three decades, several doctors had offered to repair this superficial blemish. Sulu had always politely declined.

He had received those scars on a long-abandoned Kalandan outpost, at the hands of a lethal re-creation of Losira, a beautiful woman who had died some ten millennia earlier. The mere touch of the mournful-eyed siren had already killed one member of an Enterprise landing party, blasting each of his cells from within. In an effort to protect her small domain from a perceived invasion, she also tried to kill Sulu in the same fashion. The scar where her fingers had brushed him was now all that remained not only of Losira, but of her entire civilization.

The thought of removing those jagged white markings struck Sulu as somehow disrespectful.

“Message decrypted, Captain”said the computer, interrupting Sulu’s reverie. The scowling visage of Admiral Heihachiro Nogura replaced the U.F.P. seal. Sulu took a seat at the foot of his bed, listening attentively.

“Captain Sulu, you and your crew are about to become involved in a matter of the utmost delicacy. I’m sure it’s not news to you that ever since humans first came into contact with them nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, the Tholians have always been xenophobic, territorial, and almost completely uninterested in either trade or cultural exchange with other species. That, of course, makes their recent détente overtures extremely surprising. But that’s only part of the story.

“Starfleet Intelligence has recently learned that the Tholians have stepped up their energy-weapons development programs over the past few years. While they have yet to attack any of our outposts along our shared border, Command is[12] concerned about their unexplained defense buildup. It is entirely possible that the Tholians’ current peace initiative is really an effort to lull us into letting our guard down as a prelude to an aggressive blitz into Federation territory.”

While Sulu found this news disquieting, he was also strangely relieved to hear that his superiors weren’t afraid to look askance at the Tholians’ olive branch. He and Pavel Chekov had both been on the bridge of the Enterprise when the Tholians had attacked with one of their devious energy webs. Sulu suspected that only a very few other currently active Starfleet officers—perhaps as few as Chekov, Captain Uhura, and himself—truly understood just how dangerous the Tholians could be when they felt threatened or cornered.