But it was Sdan's dress and demeanor that proclaimed him not Vulcan-or at least not Vulcan raised. He stood behind Dare in the universal military "at ease" position, relaxed but alert, his face reacting openly to everything being said. He smiled easily, but if more frequent and less threatening than Dare's, Sdan's smile was also that of a dangerous man.

His clothes matched the casualness of his s.h.a.ggy hair, loose shirt of blue silky material open half-way down his chest, black trousers, and high boots with fronts that came up over the kneecap. Yar wondered whether he chose them as protection from a kick to that vulnerable spot, or because of their swashbuckling appearance. As Dare had done when Yar had known him back at Starfleet Academy, Sdan casually exuded s.e.x appeal.

Dare, however, was emotionally contained and shielded now, as if he had raised barriers against what he and Yar had once shared. Realizing how she was sitting, straight-backed, both feet flat on the floor, she realized that she was unconsciously doing the same thing. Both were determined not to let their former relationship cloud their thinking.

Yar said, "Tell me your side of the story."

"It's not ours," said Poet. "It's the side of the Trevans. They're rebelling against Nalavia's tyranny."

"Tyranny?" Yar asked. "She is the duly-elected President."

"So were Adolf Hitler," Dare replied, "Baravis the Incomparable, and Immea of Kaveran. Nalavia used the new democratic system to get elected-and now she is systematically destroying it. There should have been a general election this year, but she suspended it for the 'planetary emergency.' Those who can see what she's doing are trying to put a stop to it, but Nalavia controls the army."

"Besides," said Poet, "most people are happy with Nalavia. Life's better than the older folks can ever remember, and the younguns have their bread and circuses. For that they're willing to forgo a bit o' freedom."

"A familiar story," Yar said with a nod. "But what does it have to do with you?"

"We're not Starfleet," Dare replied. "We don't worry about the Prime Directive. Some Trevans tried to rebel against Nalavia, but they were defeated-and those who were captured were executed publicly, without trial."

Yar felt her jaw clench, but gave back Starfleet dogma: "This world is still developing. By our standards its customs may seem primitive, even savage, but they are the customs of the people of Treva. We can hope that they will eventually become more civilized, but in the meantime we may not interfere with Trevan law."

"It's Nalavia interfering with Trevan law," said Poet. "The new const.i.tution calls for a trial before anyone can be convicted or punished, and the system has been in operation for years. Nalavia suspended it, and acted as judge, jury, and executioner."

"None of this was in the reports sent to Starfleet," Yar pointed out.

"I a.s.sume," Dare replied, "that that is why you are here. We were invited, as well," again the wolfish smile, "by the opposing faction. Isn't it intriguing that Nalavia feels threatened enough to call in the might of Starfleet?"

"If what you're saying is true," said Yar, "she won't get it. Dare, private citizens may not be bound by the Prime Directive, but Federation policy is that non-Federation worlds be left to handle their own internal affairs."

"And then," said Sdan, "Nalavia will make a big thing outta Starfleet refusing to help her poor beleaguered people. She sets everything up so she can't lose."

"If Nalavia is as tyrannical as you claim," said Yar, "eventually she will go too far, and her own people will rebel."

"Not very likely," said Poet. "Nalavia's too clever to make the majority unhappy till she's got all their necks firmly in the noose."

"Tomorrow morning," said Dare, "you will meet Rikan, the last of the Trevan warlords. Perhaps you will believe him more easily than you do us. In the meantime, a room has been prepared for you." He reached across the table. "I'll take the combadge."

Oh, I am an idiot! Yar thought-but it was probably better that she had not attempted to contact Data earlier. He might still have been with Nalavia.

As she raised her hand to tap the badge, Yar realized two things simultaneously: the badge was no longer pinned to her uniform, and Dare was reaching not to her but to Poet. His henchman dropped her combadge into Dare's hand.

The other man might be a skilled pickpocket, but Dare wasn't. By reflex, Yar s.n.a.t.c.hed the badge from him and tapped it firmly.

It chirped, but there was no response-and faster than she could try again, her wrist was gripped in an iron hand. Not Dare's; Poet's.

The ineffectual-looking man had a grip like a tractor beam. "Naughty, naughty," he said, retrieving the badge with his other hand and tossing it to Dare.

Dare caught it with a frown, obviously considered giving it a tap himself, but instead pa.s.sed it to Sdan. "The channel didn't open when she touched it. Test it out, Sdan-but make sure you don't trigger it. The robot may be able to trace her from even a single signal."

"Mr. Data is an android, not a robot," said Yar. "He is also a Starfleet officer, my shipmate, and my friend."

"You used to have better taste in friends."

"At least I don't have to worry about where Data's loyalties lie!" she spat in return, sorry the moment she said it. Frustration was her greatest enemy; when she felt helpless, outmaneuvered, she acted without thinking. Why hadn't she pretended to be partly won over? Now they'd be guarded against her, lessening her chances of escape.

Dare said coldly, "I see. You still believe in my guilt. And your duty as a Starfleet officer is to apprehend a fugitive from justice should you happen upon one in the course of an a.s.signment." His face had the same hauteur with which he had listened to the verdict at his court-martial. Even his eyes were ice. "Poet," he said, "put her in the blue room, and bar the door." And with that he stood up and walked out.

In the Presidential Palace, Lieutenant Commander Data used every piece of programming in his flirtation files to disengage himself from Nalavia's clutches.

He was having an unfamiliar reaction: it was not merely that he and Tasha had decided that restricting his actions to flirtation was the best way to "soften up" the President. No ... Data discovered that he did not want to be intimate with Nalavia. He had never experienced such antipathy before, and as he finally walked through the corridors toward his room, much later than he had intended, he a.n.a.lyzed his response.

Why, when it was obvious that Nalavia would test and perhaps expand his limits, did he find himself hoping that it would not become necessary?

It was curious: he felt as if he had changed more in the months he had been aboard the Enterprise than in all the years he had been conscious before that. He had served on other starships, visited numerous worlds, gathered gigabytes of data ... and still, on those other a.s.signments, he remained more a piece of convenient equipment than a fellow crew member to the people he worked among. And the more he sensed that he was shut out of their camaraderie, the more he yearned to be human ... until by the time he was a.s.signed to the Enterprise he had actually dared to articulate the desire.

And was not laughed at.

Even Will Riker, who was occasionally insensitive to his aspirations to such human attributes as creativity, had laughed with, not at, him the day they met-or had intended to, not yet knowing that Data laughed even less competently than he whistled. "Nice to meet you ... Pinocchio."

He had had to search the ship's data banks for the reference, but when he found and accessed it seconds later, even though Riker pa.s.sed it off as a joke, he was stunned at being compared to the subject of a story about the magical power of love.

Love was something Data had never had the temerity to a.n.a.lyze ... and yet he sometimes wondered if that was the underlying reason for his sudden growth in his new a.s.signment. He was given more freedom by Picard than by any other Captain he had served with, and when he used it to pursue his own interests there was never a reprimand, except when he occasionally allowed his voracious curiosity to interfere with his duty. He was ashamed of how frequently that happened-yet how could he resist revelling in an opportunity he had never had before?

Along with freedom had come responsibility. Data had been amazed when he learned that his a.s.signment to the Enterprise was not in the science department, or even as Science Officer, the highest post he had ever aspired to. When he accessed his new orders and saw that he was third in command he had at first believed it to be human error. Someone had input the wrong serial number, surely.

But it was true-and not only was he suddenly a member of the command structure heretofore reserved strictly for organic beings, but Captain Picard casually turned the ship over to him from time to time, as easily as he did to Riker.

And n.o.body protested!

In such an atmosphere of acceptance, Data made friends, real friends who shared their problems and their successes rather than simply using him for his physical strength or his rapid data access. Friends like Geordi LaForge, who would tell him jokes and encourage him to try any human activity that aroused his curiosity.

And friends like Tasha Yar.

When she had seduced him, so early in the voyage, he had been pleased that she had chosen him, even if it was while she was under the influence of the intoxicating virus. Her later denial, "It never happened," had hurt and the incident had limited the progress of their friendship for a time, although it had not interfered with their working relationship. Recently, though, Data had come to recognize the emotion of embarra.s.sment, and with that understanding and the pa.s.sage of time they had grown closer once again.

Their last a.s.signment together had been on Minos, the planet where the people had been destroyed by the weapons they built-where Tasha and Data had come as close as he cared to consider to dying together. That experience had crushed the final barriers.

Tasha was the last woman with whom Data had exercised his s.e.xual function. Now he realized that he was comparing Nalavia to Tasha-and that was why he would prefer not to function with the President of Treva if he could avoid it. Tasha might have been under the influence of an intoxicant, but she had shared mutual pleasure. Nalavia's primary motivation was clearly novelty. To her he was not a person but a toy, a bit of exotic spice for her jaded palate.

That was an intriguing thought: a year ago he would not have known that Nalavia was jaded, nor cared. And a year ago he would not have had the suspicion that she would treat an organic male exactly as she treated an android.

As Data approached his room, he noticed that there was no light under Tasha's door. She would be asleep by this time. It was a pity that humans had to sleep in order to function properly; he would have liked to discuss his latest self-discovery with Tasha.

However, it was an ideal time to attempt to access Nalavia's computer system; he had no responsibilities until the appointment with Nalavia in the morning, when she was to join her two guests on a tour of the capital city.

As Data approached, the guard posted near their rooms looked up groggily, frowned, and stretched, giving a grunt of surprise and then rubbing his right shoulder with his left hand. The man must have fallen asleep sitting up and gotten a cramp. If he fell asleep on duty once he would probably do so again, making it easy for Data to sneak out to locate a computer terminal. So as he went by, he said, "Good night," and opened the door to his room.

The guard stared at him. "You sleep?" he asked.

"No," Data replied with automatic honesty-and then "could have kicked himself," as the saying went. He knew perfectly well how to lie when the situation called for it; he simply had more trouble than humans recognizing such a situation. "But I ... must recharge." Let the man think he would be out of commission for a time.

"Hey-you won't blow out the power system?"

Oh what a tangled web we weave- "No," Data a.s.sured him, recalling Tasha's briefings to the officers who most frequently formed away teams: if you must lie, keep it simple. "I brought what I need with me."

"Oh. Well, good night, then."

Data breathed a sigh of relief as he closed the door behind him.

To give the guard time to relax, he exchanged his dress uniform for a standard one, then turned out the light. He could still see-not on as many frequencies as Geordi, but simple infrared made his environment as bright as day, while his internal processor interpreted the color shifts.

After a time, he carefully cracked the door open-only to have the guard look up and ask, "Is there something you need, sir?"

"No, thank you," Data replied. The guard did not appear at all sleepy now. "Please do not allow anyone to disturb me for the next four point six hours," he improvised.

"Yes, sir," the guard replied. "I'll tell my relief."

Data pulled back into his room and looked for another exit. His tricorder had already told him sensors of an alarm system surrounded the windows. The suite consisted of an anteroom, a bedroom, and a bath. The only extra door opened on a closet, with no concealed exits. There were no trapdoors beneath the carpets.

Weren't palaces supposed to come equipped with secret pa.s.sageways? Apparently only in fiction.

The bathroom was equipped with water plumbing, not sonics. Its small window was frosted, but sealed shut and also equipped with alarm sensors. Data wondered if they had been installed for Tasha and himself, or if Nalavia frequently entertained "guests" who might seek to sneak or break out. If challenged, she would undoubtedly claim it was protection against anyone trying to break in.

Data examined the fixtures, accessing all his knowledge of water plumbing. a.s.suming the culture had proper pipes that neither broke nor leached poisons into the drinking water, its primary weakness was a tendency for drains to stop up. Chemical cleansers could be used to prevent or correct the problem ... but there were times when the pipes themselves had to be replaced. There should be access panels, then-As it turned out, the entire floor of the bath lifted out, to expose all the pipes coming in and out of the small room. Data lowered himself into the crawls.p.a.ce, and began worming his way toward the area of the palace where Nalavia had first greeted them. The communications and information center would presumably be in that area.

He listened carefully for sounds above, to tell him what kinds of rooms he crawled beneath, knowing he was past the sleeping apartments when the pattern of plumbing leading to a bath every few meters ceased.

Ultimately, he pushed up the floor in a tiny lavatory and found it connected to a suite of three small offices. There were no computer terminals to be seen. Although the door to the corridor was locked, it had no alarm sensors; whatever went on in here was obviously not security sensitive.

He didn't have to pick the lock, as it opened with a k.n.o.b from the inside. There was no one outside, so he slipped a stylus from one of the desks between door and frame to keep it from locking behind him, and crept down the deserted corridor, every sense alert.

Two live guards stood outside the computer room, and the door sported an array of sensors that his infrared could perceive from twenty meters away. But he had no intention of going in through the door.

Now that he knew where the main computer was, Data moved swiftly but silently back to the suite of offices, climbed back down into the crawls.p.a.ce, and carefully pulled the lavatory floor back into place above him. Then, unerringly, he crawled through mostly empty s.p.a.ce until he was directly under the computer-he could see the warmth of its motor above him. He then followed the pipes to the nearest lavatory, hoping it was attached to the computer room.

It was. But there was someone at the computer.

He knew several dozen ways to render her unconscious but unharmed ... but he dared not risk crossing the s.p.a.ce to do so. If she turned and saw him, even if he stopped her before she sounded an alarm she would never be persuaded that she had simply fallen asleep at her work-and Nalavia would guess that Data had accessed the computer.

Data ducked back into the lavatory, where he waited for almost an hour before the woman logged off, turned out the lights, and left. Almost instantly, he was in the seat she had vacated, sorting through the routines of the archaic instrument until he got through its security codes, then erasing all evidence that he had done so.

Since he did not know what other insomniac computer user might appear at any moment, Data did not linger in the computer room. He determined the communications frequencies the computer was capable of, chose one not presently in use, adapted the modem in his tricorder to that frequency, and deleted all evidence of his tampering.

Then he returned to his suite of rooms as he had come. When he had replaced the floor, he almost left the bath at once ... until it occurred to him to check his appearance. He switched on the light, adjusted his vision to humanoid spectrum-and found that he was filthy!

He had a spare uniform, of course-but he could neither put this one in the closet nor ask the palace staff to clean it without risking questions as to how it had gotten into this condition. Fortunately, Starfleet's latest uniforms were nearly indestructible and could be cleaned by almost every method known, including soap and water.

Data stripped, stepped into the shower, and washed both himself and his uniform. The uniform he left hanging in the bath, where it would dry in an hour or two.

Then he gave his full concentration to his tricorder, ever alert for safeguards or for other computer access. Nalavia's was an old computer design with limited memory; Data could not draw information from it at normal speed, but had to wait for it to feed at its own baud rate. At one point someone else accessed the system for a check of palace security, and Data shut down his search lest it perceptibly slow the other user's access.

The slow data feed gave him time to a.n.a.lyze some of the information as it flashed by-at least enough to recognize a pattern. Orders to Nalavia's army indicated that the "terrorists" in those raids they had been shown were neither rebels nor the henchmen of a warlord: Nalavia's own troopers had committed those atrocities.

When he had finally stored everything from the tricorder, Data needed time to a.n.a.lyze it. He expected that a servant would come to "wake" him in the morning. Therefore he slid beneath the bed covers, so as to appear as normal as possible to someone unaccustomed to androids, and add credence to the lie that he was "recharging" should he be disturbed before he had finished his a.n.a.lysis.

By morning Data had reached one significant conclusion: Nalavia was lying on almost every count. Far from the duly-elected and benevolent President she claimed to be, Nalavia was a cruel and power-mad tyrant. He could not understand why the people had not risen against her en ma.s.se.

Just as he was beginning to sort the data into a form that would be comprehensible to Tasha, the door to Data's room opened and a servant entered with a tray. "President Nalavia will meet you in half an hour, sir, in the reception hall."

"Thank you," Data responded automatically.

The man set the tray on a table, uncovered several dishes, and then left. Data got up, ignored the food he did not need after indulging his curiosity to taste a large variety of dishes last evening, dressed, and went to knock at Tasha's door.

The guard in the hall said, "The young lady's gone already, sir."

Data felt himself frown. It was not late; if Tasha had been up early, why hadn't she contacted him? He tapped his combadge. It chirped but the channel did not open. Still, Tasha could have knocked at his door.

"I wonder if she remembered-" he said casually, entering Tasha's room.

Everything was as neat as Tasha herself, the bed made, her toilet items precisely laid out on the dresser.

Suspicious nevertheless, Data opened the closet. In it hung Tasha's dressing gown and two everyday uniforms.

Her dress uniform was not there.

Why was she wearing her dress uniform again this morning?

Or was it "still" rather than "again"? Had Tasha ever returned to her room last night? After spending the night awash in impersonal records of Nalavia's treachery, Data did not put anything past Treva's President.

Data scanned the entire room, the closet, the bath, the dresser drawers. He could not a.n.a.lyze the information now; for the moment, he had to concentrate on keeping Nalavia's suspicions away from himself.

He left the room, saying to the guard, "Good, she took it with her," and headed for the reception area.

Nalavia was waiting ... but there was no sign of Tasha.

The President was in another parody of uniform, this one in blue. She smiled seductively at Data, and said, "Good morning. I trust you rested well. Just how much sleep do you need, sweet android? Less than us fully organic creatures, I should think."

"Considerably less," he evaded.

"Ah-that should make some things very interesting."

But Data refused to access his flirtation files this morning. "Where is Lieutenant Yar?" he asked bluntly.

"Up with the dawn, to tour some agricultural sites. She expressed an interest in our dairy products, you remember."

Accepting a second helping of a foamy dessert made from the milk of some local animal hardly const.i.tuted a request to tour dairy farms, but Data pretended to accept Nalavia's story at face value. "Yes, I remember. But then, I remember everything that occurs in my presence."

Nalavia's smile froze just the slightest bit. Then she cooed, "I shall have to watch what I say to you, won't I? I certainly wouldn't want to make promises I don't intend to keep."