Phuong noticed Trip’s discomfiture immediately. “It’s called Romulan ale. It’s got quite a kick, but I can guarantee that it’s nonlethal.”

Trip shrugged, then began filling a pair of squared‑off drinking glasses with the sapphire‑hued fluid. “If you say so.” He handed one of the glasses to Phuong, then took a single cautious sip of his own before deciding that he liked a smooth Kentucky bourbon a lot better.

“Something’s bothering you,” Phuong said, setting his cutlery down momentarily.

Trip nodded. “I’m not sure it’s safe to talk about it here, though.”

“The electronics woven into our clothing would have let us know if there were any bugging devices trained on us now. Go ahead and speak freely.”

Trip looked furtively about the room for a moment, as though he expected to see a hidden microphone embedded in a wall, or a chair, or perhaps even in the food. Feeling foolish, he forced himself to focus all his attention back upon Phuong.

“It’s about our host,” Trip said quietly. “This Ch’uihv character. He’s not who he seems to be.”

Phuong chuckled and appeared almost to aspirate a swallow of his Romulan ale. “In case you haven’t noticed, neither are we.”

Trip felt his irritation beginning to rise. “From the moment I first laid eyes on him, I knew I’d met him before. It was over three years ago, during one of the civil conflicts on Coridan Prime. His name was Sopek back then, and he was the captain of a Vulcan military ship.”

Phuong blanched. “You’re saying you think he’s some sort of Vulcan‑Romulan double agent?”

“Looks that way to me. Anyhow, I don’t trust him. There’s no knowing whose side he’s really on.”

“There’s no way to really know that about anybody, especially in this business,” Phuong said. “The question is, what does he know about you?”

Trip shrugged again. “As far as I can tell so far, only what we want him to know.”

Phuong drained his Romulan ale in a single quaff, making Trip wince involuntarily in sympathy. “Regardless of the espionage activities of Ch’uihv–or Sopek–we don’t really have a good alternative to trusting him. He’s still our only link to Doctor Ehrehin. We’ll just have to treat Ch’uihv with a great deal of caution.”

Trip shook his head resignedly. “Caution. Good idea. Now, why didn’t Ithink of that?”

Now it was Phuong’s turn to sound irritated. “Look, Ch’uihv represents a breakaway Romulan faction that wants to assist Doctor Ehrehin in defecting to Vulcan before the Romulan military can catch up to him.”

“We hope,” Trip said. “Ch’uihv’s people could just as easily be planning to use Ehrehin’s technology for their own purposes–which could pose just as big a danger to Earth as the Romulan military does.”

Phuong set his empty glass down on the tabletop with a loud clatter. “We haveto take Ch’uihv at face value. Because if he isn’t for real, then we’re probably both dead already–along with all the worlds of the Coalition, which will fall one by one to Romulan fleets powered by Ehrehin’s new stardrive.

“But only if we fail.”

Or if we’re just plain wrong,Trip thought, then drained his own glass, stoically ignoring the blazing sensation as the bright blue stuff burned its way down his gullet like the sea floor sinking into a fiery subduction zone.

Though he didn’t like it, Trip knew that Phuong was right. Regardless of whether or not Ch’uihv–or Sopek–proved trustworthy, there really was no choice at all other than to trust him. But that didn’t mean that they had to trust him blindly.

Remembering that,Trip thought, just might give us the upper hand.

Twenty‑Five

Thursday, February 20, 2155

Enterprise NX‑01

AS THE SLEEK TORPEDO CASING was launched into space, the majority of Enterprise’s crew who had assembled in Shuttlepod One’s launch bay stood silent, while some wept or sniffled. At the forefront of the crowd, near Captain Archer and the other command staff, T’Pol neither cried nor sniffled, nor even felt the strong need to suppress the emotions that were no longer battling within her.

The feelings that had so wracked her mental disciplines when she had been in Trip’s quarters had given way to an almost preternatural calm. She had wondered at first if she were in shock, but earlier in Trip’s memorial service, when she had touched the smooth surface of his metal coffin, another thought had sprung into her mind.

For some reason she couldn’t properly identify, touching the torpedo casing had given T’Pol a gnawing disquiet, a suspicion that something was not right. But the precise nature of that something, however, remained frustratingly obscure to her.

Now, as Trip’s casket drifted away into trackless space, T’Pol wondered idly if the decision to jettison his remains here, so far from his native Earth, was really what Trip would have wanted. But when she had brought this objection to the attention of Captain Archer and Lieutenant Reed, they had both assured her that the action had been taken to honor one of Trip’s final requests. Apparently he had indicated in his will that he’d wanted to be interred in deep space, among the stars, should he happen to die in the line of duty.

Oddly, not only was Archer adamant about following Trip’s wishes, he also seemed particularly intent on carrying out the memorial ceremony and services quickly, weeks before Enterprisewas due to return to Earth. It seemed to T’Pol that the logical course of action would have been to wait until Trip’s remains could be taken to Earth, so that his family, friends, and colleagues could commemorate him, and then launch Trip into space afterward. But the captain had disagreed.

T’Pol looked to the side of the launch bay, where she noticed Doctor Phlox studying her intently. She stared back at him, and they locked eyes for a moment before the Denobulan physician turned away.

For some reason she could not identify, the doctor’s inquisitive stare made her apprehensive. She decided then and there that the best way to pursue these accumulated oddities might be to question the chief medical officer directly.

How much has she figured out?Phlox thought, more than a little concerned.

“Thank you for coming to see me, T’Pol,” he said, doing his best to sound casual as he gestured toward one of the sickbay’s biobeds. “I was going to request that you pay me a visit anyway, so I’m pleased that you’ve saved me the trouble.”

T’Pol leaned against the bed, keeping her hands at her sides. “Why did you wish to see me, Doctor?” she asked, one eyebrow slightly raised. She seemed to be making no effort to conceal her curiosity. “Might it be related to the reason you were staring at me during Commander Tucker’s memorial service?”

Phlox could have kicked himself now for having stared. He had clearly further roused suspicions that she had developed when she’d gotten close to the torpedo casing.

The casket that most definitely did notcontain the remains of Commander Tucker.

He chuckled, temporizing as he decided on the best way to allay T’Pol’s suspicions. “In addition to my role as a general physician, I often function as a mentalhealth practitioner, in lieu of any other officer aboard this ship acting in that capacity–other than Chef, I suppose.” He spread his hands and smiled widely. “I don’t know if that’s because of my bedside manner, or because doctors are bound by their medical ethics to hold anythingtheir patients tell them in strictest confidence, as long as it doesn’t endanger the ship.”

He paused, letting his words hang in the air for a moment, but T’Pol merely stared at him curiously, making no immediate effort to step into the conversational breach. After thirty seconds or so, she finally opened her mouth as if to speak, closed it again, then spoke at last.