“Permission granted,” she said with a sigh.

Nodding and looking slightly relieved, M’Ress said, “Commander Mueller ... I am not like you.”

“A cursory glance would have tipped me to that,” deadpanned Mueller.

M’Ress ignored the sarcasm. “To be a human ... it’s as if a large bag has been draped over your senses. You depend entirely—almost exclusively—upon your eyes. Your hearing is muffled, your taste is limited, and don’t even get me started on your sense of smell.”

“I’ll make sure not to. Is there a point to this anywhere in the offing?”

“The point is that I have a far clearer sense of the world, and everything in it, than you.” She leaned forward, looking like a caged puma. “And not only that, but I have a very clear sense of myself. I know what dreams feel like. I know how ephemeral they are in a way that you never could. And what I experienced was not ephemeral. It was not a passing fancy conjured by stray neurons. It was real. What happened was real. His threat was real. And you have to do something about it.”

Mueller leaned back in her chair, nodding, her interlaced fingers now resting in her lap. “I very much appreciate your candor, Lieutenant. I really do. Allow me to repay that candor with some of my own.”

“Hurt yourself.”

“What?” Mueller stared at her blankly, but then comprehended. “You mean, ‘Knock yourself out.’ ”

“Yes. That.”

“All right.” She smiled in a way that wasn’t reflected in any other part of her face. “From the moment you came aboard this ship, Lieutenant, you have received special treatment. That angered me, and continues to anger me. You have special circumstances. That’s nice. I don’t give a damn. Every single person on this ship has their own ‘special circumstances.’ Oh, maybe they aren’t the same as yours. Maybe not everyone fell through a time-travel device and wound up in a future century. But you know what? To all of those crew members, their problems and considerations and ‘special circumstances’ are as overwhelming and catastrophic to them as yours is to you. And none of them have received any sort of special dispensation. None of them are being held to a different standard. The fact is, you shouldn’t be here, Lieutenant. The Starfleet of which you’re a part is, literally, history. The ships you served on are relics, the people you served beside are dust, and the knowledge in your head is so antiquated as to be useless. At the very least, you should have been required to attend Starfleet Academy all over again. And if that was too much to demand of you, then perhaps you didn’t deserve to go back out into space in the first place.

“You know what, though? Starfleet didn’t feel that way, nor did Captain Shelby. Because of that, I was given orders and I have followed them. And you were placed in a position of authority in the science department that I did not feel you were entitled to. Then you became romantically involved with your superior officer, only to purport that you did not do so of your own free will. You claim youwere harassed, yet hewas the one who was mercilessly hounded by you and forced to sign an onerous pledge of chastity. And that apparently is not good enough. You now have the temerity to come to me and give me a flimsy story which has Lieutenant Commander Gleau rooting around in your brain and making death threats. Has it occurred to you, Lieutenant, that Gleau simply might not be thinking about you at all? Or perhaps that’s the problem. Perhaps you actually, in some perverse way, actually want his attention, but have no idea how to go about getting it. I don’t know. I don’t pretend to understand your motivations, Lieutenant, but what I do understand is that your flights of fancy are taking up an inordinate amount of my time. Get me a witness that Gleau came toward you with a knife and threatened to turn your pelt into a hat, and I’ll take action. But save the spooky bedtime stories for someone who doesn’t think you’ve been treated with entirely too much favoritism already.”

M’Ress’s eyes had grown steadily wider and wider throughout Mueller’s speech. There was a long silence after Mueller finished talking, and when she was finally done, M’Ress spoke. Her voice was low and choking, as if it was taking everything she had to suppress her genuine reaction to Mueller’s harsh words.

Instead she just said, “I ... appreciate your telling me exactly how you feel.”

“Do you.”

“Oh yes. Yes, you’ve done your utmost to make me feel welcome in this time.”

“See, that’s where the problem is,” Mueller informed her. “It’s not my job to make you feel welcome or coddle your neuroses. It’s my job to help maintain the smooth running of this vessel and carry out the captain’s desires.” She paused and then added, “You are, of course, welcome to go to the captain if you are dissatisfied with my feelings on the subject. After all, you went to her when you were convinced that Gleau had ‘taken advantage’ of you.”

“I went to the captain in that instance because I thought what Gleau was doing was a shipwide concern,” M’Ress said slowly. “This, however, is far more personal to me. It’s my life at risk, and no one else’s. I thought therefore that it would be more appropriate to follow the chain of command and report directly to you.”

“That’s very considerate of you,” Mueller told her. “And you’re not going to go over my head now?”

“No.”

That genuinely surprised Mueller. “No?”

“No.” Whatever flashes of anger M’Ress had been displaying before were now so thoroughly reined in that Mueller saw no sign of them. “One of two things will happen. Either the captain will be forced to overrule you, which would be a most uncomfortable position for both her and you to be in, and I would just as soon not place her in that predicament. I have too much respect for the office of the captaincy to do that. Or else she will simply let stand your decision, in which case I will have wasted both my time and hers. So I see no point in either course.”

“May I ask what you intend to do?”

“Whatever is necessary.”

“And what might that be?”

“I don’t know, Commander,” said M’Ress matter-of-factly. “I haven’t decided yet.” She paused, and then asked, “May I leave now?”

“You came of your own will. Feel free to depart the same way.”

M’Ress nodded, rose, and walked out. Just before she departed, she flipped her tail in a way that made Mueller wonder if it was supposed to be some sort of obscene gesture. But she couldn’t think of any way to ask.

She leaned back in her chair, drumming her fingers thoughtfully on the tabletop.

III.

Somehow when M’Ress got into the turbolift, she knew Gleau would be there. She didn’t know how she knew; she just did. The turbolift had slid to a halt and when she stepped in, there he was. “Deck nine,” she said. The doors hissed shut and the lift continued on its way.

“Lieutenant,” he said with a slight nod of his head.

“Lieutenant Commander,” she replied. Then she saw his small smirk. “What?”

“How nice that you are still capable of acknowledging ranks.”

She didn’t look at him. Instead she stared fixedly at the door even as she said, “I know what you did. Last night. To me.”

“To you? I was in my quarters,” said the Selelvian. She didn’t have to see him to know that he was smirking. “Why, did something happen to you last night?”

“You threatened to kill me.”

He sounded dumbfounded when he said, “What are you talkingabout?” He was certainly one hell of an actor.

“You threatened to kill me. Other people know. So if anything happens to me, suspicion will fall on you.”

“Let it,” he said flatly. “Let it fall where it will, because I would be exonerated should anything transpire, since I’ve no intention of killing you or anyone. I certainly hope you’ve no intention of spreading even more vicious rumors about me than you already have.”